


All Tomorrows Parties

by Anonymaustrap



Category: Champions (Roleplaying Game), Champions Online
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 38,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22174078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymaustrap/pseuds/Anonymaustrap
Summary: In 2020, all good things come to an end in the Champions Universe. Will the Online Universe suffer the same fate?





	1. January, 2020

PRIMUS’ report said he had arrived on a bolt of lightning, and they had placed the call to Flagstaff not thirty seconds later as the sergeant on watch realized that the stray bolt of lightning not illuminated the night-shrouded red buttes of Sedona had brought unknowns, potentially hostile, to the Chapel of the Holy Cross. 

The VTOL flitted off highway 17 to pick up Lieutenant Mirinova and her squad who, unlike their commander, had been sleeping but were geared and ready in five minutes, as Katrina weighed their options. Tyrannon was coming, that they knew, and that the cosmic cancer was to appear in Sedona as a stepping stone to devouring the entire dimension. They knew. The PRIMUS unit surreptitiously stationed in Sedona knew it. The Trismegistus Council members there to guard the Ley Vortexes of Sedona knew it. What Katrina knew that they did not was that in another universe -- a universe where Witchcraft was the Archmage, the battle of Arizona had been a killing field for over a thousand PRIMUS agents, nearly a hundred UNTIL soldiers and anywhere from twenty to fifty affiliated heroes before Tyrannon had been mysteriously driven off, only to return to Antarctica -- 

As they raced to Sedona, images from PRIMUS were already coming in. Had surveillance satellites been following their normal heavenly path, a clear view of Sedona would have required hours of repositioning. That, was at least an improvement -- pictures and analysis. The split at the top of the church indicated enough power from the lightning stroke for a secondary arc inside, and considerable damage. At Katrina’s suggestion, the PRIMUS team only observed in order for Katrina to investigate -- she was better equipped to survive meta-human threats and even a failed, soviet era super solider was better than nothing.

The chapel was surprisingly intact, and held two things not of this dimension and a coyote one that regarded her with a surprising intelligence and gave the back of her neck an itch she only got when around older magics. A local deity perhaps? Best to leave the categorization to the Trismegistus. But the other, dressed in what was clearly a uniform in blues and golds she’d never seen before (and pattern matching back at UNTIL would confirm was not used by any hero -- the closest match being The Blue Streak, who won the 1990 Millennium City ‘Worst Dressed’ in CAPE magazine) But he--

He could have been Proud Patriot’s overblown twin. Definitely found of poses and pronouncements, but certainly amusing as he tried to shake the coyote from biting at his shin guard and leg. He too claimed to be from another dimension -- the same dimension that Tyrannon devoured in mid-2020 -- and from the array of memory sticks and even a thumb-worn notebook -- notes on a war lost. But from such notes, battles can be won. 

The other almost didn’t seem to make the trip -- their words as vaporous as their form. At least she and Pat agreed on the arm and Katrina considered that thicker armor might be in order. Wounds, she healed from, and even once when she had lost a thumb to Scimitar some months ago, that had stubbornly regrown, but had only recently been useful. Perhaps a full limb would tax her ability to heal too far and she, like so many others, would either muster out or avail herself to UNTIL’s cyber prosthetic program. 

But no, no one took leave from Armageddon.

But she shade’s observation of her  _ other _ loss was a source of more concern. Had her counterpart channel Pyrrhic Victory? It helped explain the outcome -- the release of the Kings of Edom to stymie Tyrannon long enough for Witchcraft to cast the Quaternion Banishment -- a spell that had been lost with the murder of the last arch mage by the Circle of the Scarlet Moon, revived by the elsewhere archmage Witchcraft who refining it to no longer use the lives of billions on planet Earth to power it, but instead reach across time and space to drain the life force of every incarnation of Witchcraft, killing not just herself, but all her selves. 

Had Witchcraft not been giving Yule blessings when the spell struck, she too, would have been drained of life and helped power that terrible, terrible spell. As it was, her physical form was nearly destroyed and it took the power of Archmage Caliburn to extricate her from the spell. 

A high cost, but that was what it meant to be Pyrrhic Victory. Winning was never worth it, and if the sacrifice of every Witchcraft wasn’t enough, the world Tyrannon had invaded had been changed somehow by the spell -- changed in a way that made even the Kings of Edom walk away from Earth, no longer interested in it, poor Luther Black broken by their indifference to what was to have been his prize. Imagining the look on his face was a small consolation.

  
  



	2. Moons over Calamity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a nearby Denny's. Katerina and team try to understand all the information Proud Patriot has given them

Landing the VTOL in a Denny’s parking lot would have been ill-advised even if it had fit. So Katrina settled it in a sandy copse a half mile south along the highway and lugged the backup MUNIN unit to the diner. The mini-computer had enough storage and power to process the data brought by the alternate Proud Patriot. But first, as Sergeant Singh explained, it needed to be removed from the network that joined all MUNIN units to the main UNTIL supercomputer, HUGIN. After all, it would not be the first time someone has provided virus-ridden data to attack UNTIL. 

Inside the Denny’s, PRIMUS had sent a couple of agents to accompany the newly arrived Proud Patriot, the flickering shade and the coyote who trod guiltily among the non bussed tables, wary of the waitress’s stern eye. This left Katrina and her team to work in peace in a peanut-colored booth framed in red and white. 

None of her team felt like eating; the MUNIN unit dominated the table and left a thin perch for their coffee cups. Sergeant Singh frowned as he pecked out commands through the keyboard cradled in his lap and occasionally glanced at the fold-out display. The rest of her team looked for other ways to integrate the memory sticks, but as it was, there was only one set of compatible ports. While the data transfer crawled,. Katrina took her coffee and a Grand Slam to another table and perused the printed notebooks.

She had read enough of her own reports to recognize her own writing. Major Kemal had called her reports “Drier than a London Martini.” A collection of facts and imperatives, perfect for a reader such as she, who could fill in the grim blanks within the shorthand. Like any impatient reader, Katrina skipped to the end and forced her expression to be neutral as she read the grim chronology. 

Tyrannon’s gate in Antarctica established, an army of heroes and villains was assembled to repel him, hopefully for the final time. But in that attempt, the battle was even costlier than the battle of Arizona, and while most of the combatants thought the goal was to destroy the gateway, the real plan was to let Witchcraft complete her ritual -- a banishment to make their dimension toxic to Tyrannon the Conqueror. A plan the Katerina Mirinova in the doomed universe knew about, because she, Warlord and even Doctor Destroyer helped devise it. Even with her careful planning and a team strategy that maximize everyone’s abilities, they were still losing to Tyrannon’s hoards. All the while, Witchcraft and the Trismegistus Maesters worked their magics as Doctor Silverback and Mentiac feverishly worked their own contingency among Empyrean ruins miles under the crust of Antarctica.

As a last resort, Witchcraft lowered the arch mage’s barriers that held the Qliphothic at bay to let Luther Black bring the Kings of Edom, who claimed Earth’s Dimension as their own, and united their near-limitless power to repel the Cosmic Cancer. With reality caught in the crossfire, cosmic entities tore Antarctica asunder, and brought madness and chaos across the globe until Witchcraft completed the Quaternion Banishment, and Tyrannon, bathed in our poisonous dimension, fled.

Unexpectedly, the Kings of Edom, perhaps already knowing what the rest of the dimension was to soon discover, departed, disinterested in Earth or the howling remains of Luther Black that soon faded to ash. In all she had read, that thought brought a smile to Katerina’s face. However, the effect did not end with Luther Black and The Maesters of the Trismegistus Council, quickly realized Earth’s dimension no longer held enough power to sustain such creatures. Ghosts, heroic and villainous, along with mythological heroes quickly left, or themselves faded. Dr Destroyer’s armor, that pinacle of superhuman accomplishment, collapsed and Albert Zerstoiten, died, giving Katerina something else to smile about.

But those events and the rest of the events, were not in Katerina’s hand, and it didn’t take her long to assess the dizzying array of ends before her. Had the channeling of Pyrrhic Victory consumed her at last, or was she, like Luther Black and Takofanes, no longer something that could be sustained in a reality that didn’t tolerate casual violations of the laws of physics? All that was certain was that she was gone, though the plans she had made continued.

Using the Empyrean technology combined with sorceries provided by others, a select few, including Proud Patriot, were flung across dimensions, in the vain hope they would prevent the fate of one dimension being the fate of them all, and ending the Cosmic Cancer. Many of those harbingers did not make it, but some had managed to arrive in order to guide this dimension to victory.

But how? Katrina wondered. Proud Patriot had brought the annals of a war that ended in victory, but a victory with a terrifying cost -- its advanced technology lost, its people no longer able to soar among the clouds on their own -- a world she couldn’t understand. 

Still, even this improbable world was denied if it depended on Katerina being Pyrrhic Victory. The scar under Katerina’s eye itched terribly. No. Pyrrhic Victory was gone; but there must be another way.

_ Work backward _ . Katrina thought as she flipped the pages.  _ It must be here. _


	3. The Meeting and Its Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The meeting between the Trismegistus Council, DEMON, the Circle of the Scarlet Moon and the Archmage turns into a carnival of destruction, leaving The Circle and DEMON crippled. The Fate of Luther Black is uncertain. Was it a bloody debacle, or was it all part of Caliburn's plan?

A technical unit from Flagstaff arrived at the Denny’s, which sped up the glacial pace of the data transfer from the pile of data sticks supplied by the alternate -- now current --- Proud Patriot. Katerina Mirinova read as far back in the reports as the comings and going in Denny’s would allow -- first a netherworld dragon, then an Edomite sorcerer, already joining the quasi-dimensional shade, coyote and living action figure. To top it all off, Robert Caliburn the Archmagus of Earth’s dimension. 

And of course, there were the new reports -- slaughter and destruction of a manor house outside of Milford, Connecticut, precipitated by the very same array of dark sorcerers, demons, and dark sorcerers --

And Caliburn.

“Not the Archmagus we wanted,” Pearl Perdue, said as Katrina glanced over at the Magnum Mage, hunched over the flickering of a fiery gem, the booth obscured by tendrils of crimson smoke.

“No?” Katrina asked. She normally avoided he intrigues of the Trismegistus Council, but Caliburn had only recently ascended to the contested title, feelings were still hot over the vote.

Pearl plucked at her rings. “After almost a century, It is a relief to have _any_ archmagus, thanks to those bastards in the Scarlet Moon. Just -- I had hoped for a more…”

“Sober?”

Pearl scowled. “Scholarly.”

“Maybe,” Katrina said, “Maybe he’s the archmagus we deserve. Not that Witchcraft or Rashindar wouldn’t have been capable--”

“You’re a soldier,” Pearl said without judgement. “I suppose that creates an affinity for the devil you _think_ you know. What happened tonight isn’t a win by anyone’s measure, except Caliburn’s.”

“I think I see the method in his actions,” Katerina said. Pearl’s stare was blank.

“Then you’re as crazy--”

“Just hear me out. He knows the Quat--Quant--”

“Quaternion Banishment--”

“Right. That. And he knows that Witchcraft made it so that it doesn’t kill billions of innocents, but a trillion suicides--”

“Witchcraft sacrificed herself --”

Katrina leaned over the table slowly. “Are you saying every incarnation of Witchcraft had a say as to whether they gave their lives for a singular dimension _robbing_ those other dimensions of any ability to defend themselves?”

Pearl’s lip fluttered. “I-I don’t know. But she wasn’t the archm--Oh.”

“Right. I don’t know if Caliburn would do the same, but let’s say he did. Our dimension is without an archmage, again and at the mercy of lessor mages. So, Caliburn took out the opposition -- “

“Potential allies--”

“Really? Allies? The very same covens who killed your archmage? Don’t you think they’d split the moment they figured this wasn’t winnable? And the Kings of Edom?”

“I never supported the idea of releasing the Qliphothic. That way lies madness.”

“And yet we -- our at least we in another universe -- did.”

“Things must have been desperate, but now, with Luther Black all but destroyed -- that option is thankfully denied to us.” Pearl added, “I suppose what you say makes sense. I do not envy those who understand the mind of Robert Caliburn.”

“I don’t,” Katerina said with a shrug. “I just know what I would have done.” The look on Pearl’s face as Katrina mumbled off an excuse to leave made it clear she was not reassured. At Caliburn's booth, Katrina waved aside the amber tendrils of smoke that sparked against her hand. 

“Little busy here,” Caliburn said, his intense focus on the gem. His cigarette was an exhausted traill of ash on the plate, along side a disjointed stack of half-eaten burger.

“I can see that. Looking for Black?”

“Nothing would make me happier than to see his corpse. He has a way of coming back.”

“Not in the near future, and we’ve got near future issues. Looks like your hit squad made short work of the Edomites and the Scarlet Circle,” Katrina said, sliding into the booth. The gem’s flicker dimmed and she followed it down with her gaze, drifting into it until Caliburn snapped his fingers.

Caliburn chuckled and the flame flickered out. “Careful, it has a way of drawing you in.” He took out a cigarette and lit it by inhaling. “Yeah, didn’t expect it to go down exactly that way, but it got the job done.”

“Messy.”

“Not my call. If I’d have done it my way, the building would still be standing.”

“Yeah, but I thought mystics were pretty good at picking up intent, and for the most part, their intentions were to avoid a fight.”

“Even a Morbane of the Scarlet Moon can get fooled by what's right in front of them. But Nidus went in with a troop of demons, ready to engage whoever had a weapon, and for a netherworlder, there’s not a much more deadly weapon than my colt.”

“A colt blessed by an angel.”

“The Angel of Death. But the problem was how to get it passed the weapons ward the Trismegistus had set up. Lucky me, Ziz dispelled it."

“And the Trismegestus didn’t bother to warn the Circle or the Edomites.”

“Would you?”

“Nope. But I thought you gave your guns to Proud Patriot.”

“Check your holster, UNTIL.”

Katrina reached down, and felt unfamiliar metal instead of the ceramic of her blaster. The colt was heavy in her hand, and hummed with power against her palm. She kept the barrel angled to the floor. “That’s a trick.”

“So I pop it on an Edomite, angle the shot just right, and things go crazy. I thought I’d have to ‘port in and mop up, but Ziz decided to protect 'her' people and the rest of the team slaughtered everyone. I didn't have to anything except pick up the Morbane’ amulets and pop a shot all the way down to Luther Black.” Caliburn contemplated a flacid fry in his fingers before tossing it back on the plate. “I don’t get any kicks out of this -- its gotta be done.”

“I agree,” Katerina said, and Caliburn looked back in surprise.

“No high flying UNTIL ideals? No moralizing? Are you feeling alright?”

“Any moralizing I’ve given you had been coming from your own head,” Katerina said. “I don’t know how ‘honorable’ everyone was in the other Millennium City was, but here we’re more cuthroats and killers than capes and crusaders. Sure, I try to keep it down to a dull roar, but it seems we’ve got a thing--”

“Bloodlust.”

“Yeah. That’s not just magically going away. And we’re not going to be able to do it like they did, even if we wanted to.” She slid the colt across the table to Caliburn.

Caliburn slid it back. “Hang on to it. I need your help getting some stuff ready for the Quaternion Banishment -- if it comes to that. Just keep in mind, righteousness is a drug more powerful than all the opium dens in Saigon.”

“You been back? Its a pretty nice city now.”

“They’re all pretty nice cities at first. In order to cast the Banishment, I need an extradimensional space to cast it from. Most aren’t that durable, so I’m thinking Witchcraft wasted time maintaining the space that should could have spent casting the spell. I figure, since you’re already planning a trip to Russia--”

“Extradimensional space-- what makes you think --” for a moment, Katerina paused, the image of the thatched roof and the stone walls riding on long, spindly legs, the talons digging into the earth. “Do you mean Baba Yaga’s hut?”

“Got it in one. You’re pretty smart for a bluecap,” Caliburn said, as he pulled on his cigarette. As he inhaled on it, the end glowed like the gem. 

“She’s just stories. My mother might have mentioned--”

“Some things start real and become stories, and some things are stories that become real. In the end, we really can’t tell the difference. The only mystic I know who might help you is Rasputin, and he’s a cagey asshole. Watch yourself.”

She’s not going to just give her house over, is she?”

“She might, good of the universe and such. I hear she’s not unreasonable. But you’re closer to her than I am. But if she’s not--” he cocked his head to the pistol.

“But--”

But Caliburn was gone, the smoke wafting away into nothing. At least he turned the smoking signs back to “no smoking”.

 _Shit_ , she thought, _Patriot must be frantic. I’ve got to tell him._


	4. The Will and the Word

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lt Mirinova tries to adjust to carrying Caliburn's Colt, and get to Moscow, but fate and the War Machine gets in her way.

Both PRIMUS and UNTIL used Millennium City Airport when their own transport capabilities were maxxed out. With both organizations preparing for the arrival of Tyrannon, PRIMUS’ transport needs took every free MCA flight; UNTIL made do with every aircar and VTOL available. So the only flight for Lt. Katrina Mirinova to Moscow was out of Gerald Ford International Airport -- an hour and a half drive away in Grand Rapids via ground car. 

While waiting for a car, she borrowed gun-oil on the sly from Lieutenant Tolbert. Bullet-heads were a small, forbidden cult in UNTIL that still loved the smell of cordite, an interest that Katrina hadn’t shared until now. Like all UNTIL agents, she knew her U-SHL “shellie” pistol well, with its settings for punch or puncture, generous power clips and a choice of single or auto fire. In comparison, the M1911A Colt was an imbalanced hunk of metal built with a singular purpose, familiar in shape only, but in the quiet of her room, it whispered promise. 

Not that the Colt hardly needed cleaning. Caliburn, or the magics around the weapon, kept it in pristine condition. But she wasn’t about to go into the field with a weapon she hadn’t cleaned and fired before. Besides, Tolbert’s price of the oil had been seeing the Colt in action.

Tolbert hadn’t come alone. The pistol had a legend; the legend a following, mostly Americans. Primarily men, who watched from a safe distance in reverent silence. She counted at least three bibles amongst them.

For a pistol blessed by the Angel of Death, it was unremarkable from the millions produced during the Vietnam war -- save for the Aleph etched in crimson on one side of the handgrip and the Omega on the other. If the devoted cluster of bullet-heads were disappointed, they hid it very well. 

Nor was there a chorus of angels or a glow of heavenly might as she pulled the trigger at the target downrange. Heavier on the recoil than her shellie but more than manageable for an augmented soldier. She fired six more times, and another to make sure the chamber was empty. Instead of a heavy clack, the pistol fired again. She fired two more times. 

“Huh. I could swear it held seven shots,” She said as she pulled the magazine.

“The M1911A standard magazine contains seven ACP rounds,” Tolbert said as others nodded solemnly.

Inside the magazine were seven rounds sat, waiting to be fired. The mat at her feet was free of casings. With the magazine in her hand, she fired two more shots. She slapped the magazine back in, set herself, and fired a steady stream of shots until the target had a hole the size of her head in the center, and kept firing, until the pops she heard through her earmuffs were a steady hum that became its own chorus as the action of the Colt became a blur. She stopped counting and gave into the pulse of the weapon, until the heat of the barrel spread down to the handgrip and she had cut a six inch swath down the length of the target. As she lowered the weapon, she glanced to the onlookers, locked in rapt attention. A couple crossed themselves. 

“Not exactly loaves and fishes, but it’ll do,” Katrina said as she touched the tip of the barrel. Her fingertip sizzled against the metal. She switched targets, and wondered if she’d find bullets embedded in the back wall or if they too faded like the casings. 

By the fourth target, she had her usual grouping of shots, and considered shooting a cross pattern into the final target, wondering if the devout spectators would faint dead away. For a moment, she pitied them. Those she had met who called themselves demons and angels hadn’t deserved such pure, unsolicited devotion. When she was a girl, she remembered how her father had dragged her to church, ignoring her every protest and excuse. Mother had been more lax, attending just enough times to keep her father from disappointment. But they were gone and now, she only attended funerals. 

***

Katrina rarely needed sleep, but sometimes it felt good enter into the routines of regular people. Re-cleaning the Colt and disassembling and reassembling the pistol until the motions were second nature lulled her thoughts. After a hot shower she was ready to slide into a rarely-used bed and  _ pretend _ she followed circadian rhythms. 

But any pretence of sleep was chased away by the hounds of her own thoughts. Ash had verified Emerald Sentinel’s models; Mechanon would be of no help in fighting Tyrannon, and could even try to use the situation for his own ends. Between that and Caliburn turning the negotiations between the Trismegistus Council, The Circle of the Scarlet Moon, and DEMON into a bloodbath, the list of potential allies was getting smaller all the time, let alone those that would switch from Earth’s defender to Earth’s conqueror in the blink of an eye. 

They needed allies, but at the very moment when she should be out getting them, Caliburn sent her off like some cat’s paw to secure Baba Yaga’s Hut -- one of the many necessary components to casting the Quaternion Banishment -- a spell that in “the other Earth” had resulted in Tyrannon being driven away at the price of Earth’s dimension losing its ability to allow heroes to exist. It seemed to be the only eventuality Caliburn prepared for -- to the cost of all other plans. 

She’d almost said no to Caliburn, but Project Hermes had all but begged her to go, and between the maze of politics and the hectic pace of Millennium City, she’d never been back home since General Mirinov had used his connections and clearance to slide his dead daughter into that containment vessel meant to create the next level of Soviet super soldier. Did the car she’d run off the road still rust at the edge of some twisting road near Grozny? Maybe she’d look, after she found Rasputin and eventually Baba Yaga. Hopefully she’d be reasonable.

***

Katrina took a ground car with an advanced MUNIN unit that could avoid the traffic snarls created by thousands of self-driving vehicles all discovering the same shortcut to get around the mobilization of a city. It also meant secure communications so she called Sergeant Statler. 

“Dr. Strasky insists that all data regarding the Future Soldier Program was destroyed.”

“Then there should be documentation of the destruction. Get that, or he’s gaslighting you.”

“Ma’am, he’s lodged a formal complaint to Major Clay.”

“Did he? Well, that doesn’t seem like he’s hiding anything at all,” Katrina said. “Lean on Gladiator. He was the only real super soldier to come out of the program. He’s bound to know something we can use to leverage on Dr. Strasky.”

“Ma’am, all due respect, but Gladiator’s at least as strong as you are. Not sure if I can really lean--”

“Tell him to get Dr. White and Dr. Black to explain ‘dimension devouring entity’ to him. If that’s not enough to motivate him, remind him that if he’s lucky, he’ll be celebrating New Years 2021 talking about how he *used* to be a super soldier.”

“Ma’am, with all due --”

“You know who’s not going to give  _ anyone  _ ‘all due respect’?  _ Tyrannon _ isn’t going to give all due respect. You get Stasky to give up the goods. That’s. An. Order. And if Major Clay doesn’t like it, then tell him  _ I’m not waiting _ for him to start taking this threat seriously.”

Silence. “He won’t like that, Ma’am.”

“Listen, Sergeant. Chances are there won’t be a 2021. Our careers, what Major Clay  _ likes?  _ His mustache? They won’t mean shit. I’m running around for the  _ goddamn archmage,  _ and UNTIL is squabbling like a community book club. Any word from Firelord?”

“Not yet, but our Malvan contact has assured us the message has been delivered.”

“To who?” Katrina asked, and pinched her nose at the silence that followed. The Malvan contacts on Earth were diffident at best. “It doesn’t matter. I have a plan for getting his attention.”

“Do I have to lean on anyone, Ma’am?”

“No, well maybe. Have Emerald Sentinel start working on adjusting the ADIS to hit the dark side of the moon. If anyone can work with Mentiac and pull it off, she can. What about Warlord? Double D?”

“Nothing and nothing. Not sure its a good idea bringing him into this.”

Katrina sighed and sat back in the car. “I know. But he probably already knows. And if he knows how the dimension before wound up, He won’t be keen on letting it happen again.”

“I watched that video close to a dozen times, Ma’am. Weird how without his armor he just --” 

“Died. I know,” Katrina said. She’d watched it herself, over and over. Stop. Reverse. Watch. So much hatred in those eyes, the sense of being cheated. He was the smartest the best, the vessel of fear for billions, but Death didn’t care, and in the end those eyes assumed an emptiness she’d seen too many times before. 

“It felt like justice, Ma’am.”

Katrina closed the call, Statler’s words in her head. How many men and women -- good, honorable people like him had Destroyer killed? A world without Dr. Destroyer or Mechanon -- a world without metahumans killing normals period. That’s got to be attractive to some, and that some were going to find out what happened in the 2020 Universe pretty quick.

***

The ticket attendant frowned at Katrina as her eyes droned across the permit. After the third readthrough, she directed the other passengers to another counter and left without a further word. Ten minutes later, a wheezing TSA officer left her ina closet they called ‘Secondary Screening’. Half an hour later, Katrina continued to wait, her departure looming.

The attendant returned with a pinched-faced man who took the permit with a scowl, and huffed at the form as he squinted down at the paper.

“I’m going to miss my flight,” Katrina said in an even voice.

“Don’t take that tone with me, miss--”

“Lieutenant--” Katrina said, her lips forming each syllable. She watched a trickle of sweat undulate down his neck to join the beige stain on his collar. 

“That’s not an American uniform. I was in the air force. I know my uniforms.”

“You’ve seen my permit. I am clear to carry weapons on American International--”

“We reserve the right to refuse service to  _ anyone _ ,” He said in a tone that demanded she know who he was. “You’ll have to surrender the weapon--”

“That,” Katrina said, leaning across the counter. “That will not happen.”

She hoped he’d try. Instead he stood and wheezed for a moment, then backpedaled out the door with a haste that told her he wasn’t going to get his manager, but more security. 

“Bring them,” Katrina snapped in the empty room, her teeth gritted, frustration buzzing at the back of her head like a swarm of hornets. The enormity of her task pressing on her shoulders, every muscle taut, and for a moment, Katrina was hit by how absurd, no wrong, this felt. 

She willed her fingers to un-grip the counter. What was it Agent Kutter had always said? “Two things will take away your situational awareness, Mirinova: mad and scared. If you’re either, you’re blind, and you’ve lost control.”

Katrina took slow breaths, even as the smug, piggly face of the manager smirked in her minds’ eye. He was just another bureaucrat. There were other flights, she reminded herself as tension ran along her spine. A pissing match with a paper pusher -- the idea irritated her more and more until she was mad over being mad.

Working with Mind Game had taught her about mental defenses.  _ This isn’t you. _ She steadied herself with even breaths as she contemplated her foes. Was it PSI? Certainly their M.O., to get her to fly off in a rage and beat every security guard in the Grand Rapids International Airport. But besting the diabetic baker’s dozen that made up airport security that wasn’t exactly going to get her to Moscow. Why? Why now? She slid out of private screening, scanning the concourse.

Not PSI, Katrina realized as she settled on an asian woman near a book kiosk. Her Hawaiian print shirt and baggy jeans may have made to look like she was on vacation, but her stance was that of a seasoned fighter, ready for a fight. Their eyes met.  _ Warmonger _ . 

Warmonger. A mutant who power was making people made enough to kill each other and letting them. One of Warlord’s War Machine.

“You shit,” Katrina muttered as she sprinted across the hallway.

“Why you mad, sis?” Warmonger asked, as Warmonger’s focus turned into a white hot lance at Katrina’s skull. Through the pain, she mapped out Warmonger’s pressure points, angling to take her out quickly before she passed out.

Halfway across the hall, a blast of sound like a thousand loudspeakers slammed into her. The hallway tilted violently as she flew, and her ears rang hard as she slammed into a stack of luggage. 

_ Stupid,  _ Katrina thought.  _ Still Mad, still Blind.  _ Of course, another member of the War Machine would complete the L formation of the ambush. The hallway spun as she scrabbled to her knees. Over the luggage, she saw Warcry at the end of the hallway in his fatigues and green muscle shirt, laughing. 

“Wow, baby girl, that looked like quite a tumble. But don’t worry, you’re not the first lady to get weak in the knees around Warcry. I wonder how many of those super-soldier bones of yours I can break with just my voice.”

“Warlord wants her alive,” Warmonger said, then switched to an earpiece. “Warbird, Warpath, we got her easy.”

First Warmonger and Warcry. Now Warbird and Warpath. She tried to remember the others. Warhead with his jetpack armor and missile launchers would probably be with Warbird whose razer wings would be more a liability than an asset in the tight confines of the airport, Warpath, with her bow and specialty in close quarters combat would be supporting Warmonger. 

Somewhere in all of this was Warlord. Planning ahead, watching her movies, trying to predict her tactics as she predicted his. She hoped her information was more up to date than his. 

“I’m not getting busy on no dead girl. I’ll just break her a little and leave the fun parts for later.” He sauntered forward, to where the Colt sat on the floor where Kat had thrown it, hoping they’d think she’d lost it in the impact of Warcry’s sonic shout. Perhaps not perfect placement, but close enough. She kept her blaster concealed by the scattered luggage. 

“Just knock her out, and let's get out of here before -- does Grand Rapids even have a super team?” Warmonger said as Katrina felt the pounding ache in her head return.

“Just some dude called Grand Rapid,”

“Speedster?”

“No fuckin’ idea,” Warcry said as nudged the Colt with the toe of his boot. “Hoo-wee that’s a big gun for a little girl. Yeah, I bet you like big guns. I got a howitzer for you to play with.”

“For fuck’s sake, Warcry, play with her on your own time. We’re on a schedule.”.

“Yeah, yeah, let me just take care of her boyfriend here.” 

Katrina concentrated on the pain in her head, Warmonger was a mind controller, not a mind-reader, but UNTILs intelligence weren’t always on the mark. She didn’t need anyone sensing her anticipation. Warpath always bragged about breaking heroes’ toys.

Warcry took a deep breath as Katrina protested for effect. “No! Please!” Could his sonic voice actually destroy the Colt? She hoped not, but at the same time, the look on Caliburn’s face would be priceless. 

The power of the Warcry’s shriek bit into her eardrums as the floor tiles under the Colt shattered. The air rippled until his scream abruptly stopped and Warcry staggered back, clutching at his throat.

“Something’s wrong with Warcry,” Warmonger managed to say in her mic before Warcry’s throat exploded. 

UNTIL files said that Warcry’s vocal cords had been replaced with some alien technology, and now that technology erupted outwards in a spray of blood and silvery bands. They whipped about his head, splattering the hallway with blood before wrapping themselves around his head, his flesh bulging as the bands squeezed. Warcry staggered drunkenly as he clawed the bands. Between a pair of criss-crossed strips, one eye bulged at Katrina with equal parts terror and hatred. She was sure he would have screamed, if he could. 

Warmonger reeled back, splattered with blood and shreds of Warcry’s larynx. Katrina wasted no time with the shellie, flipping Warmonger over a row of chairs with two quick shots into her midsection. Warmonger had armor under the flowered shirt -- she was no fool -- but Katrina felt the headache lift, and she could get a better sense of the situation. 

She fired a burst at the corner just as Warpath moved for her shot, clipping the head of the arrow she had in her bow. The arrow exploded, covering Warpath with a grey-green gas. Warpath choked and fell back behind cover.

The roof exploded inward as Warhead crashed down in front of her in his blue and gold flight suit. On the ground, he extended his arms to train his micro missiles at her. “Bitch, that is about enough out of you.”

“About time,” Warmonger said. Despite the armor, she clutched at her side and her voice sounded strained. “Now wrap her up and let's get out of here.”

From down the hall a metallic voice chimed in. “Hey, is that Iron Man? I thought Iron Man was taller.”

Katrina frowned, trying to recall any heroes named Iron Man. No, that was one of those names that comic company sued people over. And the speaker? Presumably whoever was talking through the device on the mutts collar. But a closer look at the device and it just a phone, and the voice was far too clear and loud to be coming from the phone. Something about the dog’s gaze prickled at the back of Katrina’s head. That mutt had to be that coyote that had followed her from Sedona.

“Iron Man’s a chump,” Warhead said. “Warhead’s the real deal.”

“You’re talking to a dog. Focus,” Warmonger said.

“Looks like you’re the chump,” The dog said. “You’re a little short for a stormtrooper.” 

Katrina suppressed a smile. She made a small nod to the Colt.  _ C’mon boy, fetch the holy boomstick…  _ She flexed her hand for effect.

“Fuck you dog, you’re the chump. Can Iron Man do this?” Warhead fired a salvo of rockets down the hall. The hallway erupted in fire, and the dog, bolted in front of the salvo, snatching up the Colt as he scrambled passed the divot in the floor. Katrina snatched the gun from the dog’s mouth as it bolted past and skid around a corner. 

“Muther fuck,” Warhead said. His jets screamed as he chased after the dog.

“No!” Warmonger shouted. “You’re supposed to apprehend Mirinova. What the actual fuck is going on here?”

Katrina snapped the shellie up, flipping the power lever to punch. “If I shoot you, Warmonger, Warcry will die. If I think for a second you’re trying to influence me, you’ll die with him. Now Warcry there can’t breathe. You need to poke a hole--”

“In his trachea--I know,” Warmonger muttered, her hands red with Warcry’s blood. “Not that it will matter if it crushes his skull.” Katrina saw the focus on Warmonger’s face, probably using her abilities to keep him still.

“What’s Warlord’s play here?”

“Fuck you, I’m busy. Ask him yourself.”

Warlord’s decent widened the hole Warcry had made. The weapon arrays alone made up over half the blue monstrosity filling the hallway. Tracking lazers formed almost a dozen pinpricks on Katrina’s body. Unlike Warhead, he didn’t extend his arms, but kept them close to his sides as he raised his hand cannons. “Little lady, you’re gonna have to stop breaking my team.”

Katrina felt the weight of the pistol as it came to her hand and with a smooth motion leveled the Colt at Warlord’s featureless dome.  _ For this is the LORD'S time of vengeance, _

After three heartbeats, Warlord’s metallic laugh broke the silence. “Ho-lee shit, Kat. Ain’t you just  _ full _ of surprises. ‘Monger, you said she was down. You and I have a very different definition of ‘down.’”

Katrina pressed the barrel against Warlord’s dome. She felt the vibration of the hand cannon as its magazine whirred. “Tell your pack to settle down or they’ll be looking for a new commanding officer.”

“Really Kat? No .45 ACP is gonna crack this egg. Sides,” He hefted his hand-cannon, the barrel as big around as Katrina’s fist, “Mine’s bigger. A lot bigger.”

“Warcry tried destroying that pistol, Sir,” Warmonger said, “Now his vocal cords are trying to crush his skull.” Her tone held more fascination than actual concern.

Kat steadied her aim. “Yeah, that would be the last guy who tried a gun dick joke. This here M1911A has got stuff older than Christ in it -- Angel of Death Stuff. You’re an only child, right? First born?”

“No kidding?” Warlord said, “I suppose in the presence of the wrath of God, I shouldn’t be such a fucking potty mouth, right?”

“I’ve cracked your egg before.”

“Lucky shot. I fixed that spot, hon.”

“You know I make my own luck, and you think I just found  _ one _ weak spot? I know more.”

“Huh. Do you now?”

“I’ve got a shot!” Warpath yelled from behind. Katrina heard the creak of Warpath’s bow. “Lower the weapon, Mirinova, now!”

“Seems your girl is looking to be heap big chief,” Katrina said.

“Fuck you,” Warpath said. Katrina heard the bow creak.

The silence twisted until Warlord broke into a braying laugh. “You’re trying to get under her skin and  _ make _ her shoot. Goddamn! No fucks to give Kat is the  _ best _ Kat by far. I just gotta say, is it just me or is it hot in here? I’m feeling some chemistry so what’s it gonna be? Are we going to ice each other like a couple of teenagers in love?”

“ _ And Sodom and Gomorrah dissolved in the white fire of God’s Glory _ ,” Katrina said, her voice resonated with the words, a chorus of righteous fury burned at the back of her head. Complete, perfect purpose -- the word and the will.

Warlord was quiet for several seconds. “‘Monger, fun’s fun, but stop tweakin’ Lieutenant Mirinova.”

“I’m not doing anything but trying to keep Warcry breathing, sir,” Warmonger said.

“Then what,” Warlord said, “Well, shit. That piece sure has a hold on you. C’mon Kat, you’re the one who wanted to pow-wow with me. The War Machine was supposed to come in, mess with you a little and then we’d talk. And now its going to get ugly.” He lowered his arms, the whir of the magazine slowed to a series of sharp clicks. “Never let it be said I can’t be the bigger man. The  _ much _ bigger man.”

“The angels of death are legion.”

“Sir, I have the shot!” Warpath’s voice sounded uncertain and frantic.

“Warpath stand the  _ fuck down.  _ Kat, get a grip, girl. God does not love you enough to bring you back, just saying.”

Katrina heard Warlord, but felt other words, the flood of righteous fury.  _ I am the shadow that passes the bloody lintel.  _

Warpath’s bow slid across the floor into her view. With a deep breath Katrina pushed the white light of vengeance away. Her hand shook as she holstered the pistol, and pulled her hand from the grip, finger by finger. “You couldn’t just call, could you?”

“And miss a chance to spar with UNTIL’s finest? Sides, I owe you one for leading me and my forces right into one of Double-D’s bases. Now  _ that _ was a dick move.”

“You were trying to kill me.”

“Because you made it your pet project to fuck with my plans.”

“I liked the challenge,” Katrina said with a small shrug. “Besides, you said fighting Double-D would be the scrap of a lifetime.”

“Yeah, and it nearly was.”

“That’s not the fight I want to talk about. You helped with the V’han invasion back in the ‘90’s, right?”

“Oh, yeah I did. You weren’t even around for that one. Don’t tell me they’re coming back, cuz the idea of seeing you in the middle of that action is my idea of damn sexy, firecracker.”

“Not V’han,” Katrina said. “Worse.”

“Something worse than the Empress of a Billion Dimensions adding another to her collection?”

“A dimension that eats other dimensions.”

Warpath said, “Did she just say a dimension that eats dimensions?”

“Fuck me,” Warmonger hissed as she wrapped another layer of gauze around Warcry’s neck.

“No,” Warlord said, pointing a finger at Katrina. “Fuck you, Kat, for finding something that’s worse. Shit. Well, you want ordinance, you’ve come to the right place.”

“Ordinance, sure. But I got a plan, and I need someone to run it by.”

“Aw shucks. You do care. Doesn’t UNITY have that brain guy?” 

“Metiac. Brightest guy I know, but he says he doesn’t have enough data yet.”

“Sir,” Warmonger said, “Hate to wreck a tender moment, but if we don’t evac Warcry out, he’s gonna bleed out.”

The sudden urgency Katrina expected from Warmonger’s statement didn’t arrive, but after a moment, Warlord said, “Fine. Get a helo down here.” He turned to Katrina. “We good, or are you gonna pop our bird out of the sky?”

“Get in. Get out. Coordinate with flight control and leave *everyone* alone, or there will be,” Katrina paused, hating the word as it spilled out, knowing wasn’t hers.  _ “Vengeance.” _

“You know this biblical thing ain't nothing more than your daddy issues, right?”

“My daddy issues are crushing your man’s skull like a grape. So you might want to take me up on my offer before his head goes pop.”

“Damn. I am definitely going to kill you when this little truce is over,” Warlord said, “You heard the lady. Move out. I’ll stick around and rap with the holy hand grenade here. We got some catching up to do -- providing you keep that Old Testament holstered.”

“I’ll keep it holstered if you lose the armor.”

“Aw, but sunshine, I got nothing but skivvies under all this beautiful death machine.”

“Then you’re gonna get a bit chilly,” Katrina said. “You keep your  _ massive _ amounts of compensation and I’m keeping Revelations right here in my hand.”

Warlord popped his helmet. “We’ll work it out.” HIs rugged face had its share of scars, punctuated by a strong jaw. An easy smile that seemed likable, Katrina thought, if he wasn’t such a goddamn psychopath. 

“Who gave you that peashooter anyway?” Warlord asked.

“Caliburn,” Katrina said, securing her holster. A move purely for show since she figured it would be in her hand whenever she wanted it anyway. She added, “The archmage.”

“The archmage huh? Gave you a pistol that makes you the Angel of death.”

“Something like that,” Katrina said with a scowl.

Warlord popped the chestpiece of the armor to slide out. “You ever ask yourself  _ why?” _


	5. Justice In the Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katrina visits Drifter at Justice Squadron Headquarters

Katrina noted two messages from Emerald Sentinel on her com as she negotiated the jam at JFK and pressed on through the subway. She emerged with a crowd into a mob cloaked in grey drizzle, their attention not on the weather but on the gleam of the towers before them. Katrina couldn’t help but catch the sense of wonder at Justice Squadron Plaza. Four great columns rose from the plaza like the masts of an ocean liner, each topped with a chrome statue of winged victory holding aloft the Squadron’s signature globe and shield. Together, the towers formed a defiant bulwark against the glass and metal boxes around them. Katrina savored the moments and decided Emerald Sentinel could wait.

The line for tickets wound and wound even as the mist turned into rain. She spotted Agent Sims of PRIMUS undercover -- selling Brawler Masks and copies of “Guide to the Heroes of New York”. Just a glance caught his attention and at his nod she followed him to a small building flanked with a pair of soldiers in PRIMUS heavy armor. The Operations Chief was a tall, heavyset man who looked like he’d be more at home on the plains of Valhalla than behind a desk too small for PRIMUS tactical armor.

“Aren’t you a little off schedule, UNTIL?” The Operations Chief asked, his beard and his armor dripping with water. “You were supposed to see Drifter yesterday.” 

“There was trouble in Grand Rapids,” Katrina said. “UNTIL Millennium City has my full report.”

“Yeah. Warlord showed up and made a big mess, like he always does. Yet despite all the people he’s killed, you and he have a little chat and he just flies off, unharmed and unapprehended.”

“Chief, I know that’s not an optimal outcome, but he has agreed to help us with Operation Eschaton.”

“Your report said you  _ invited _ him to that little shindig in Grand Rapids.”

“I sent a request to parlay, not trash an airport. Warlord sent the War Machine to apprehend me. I resisted. In the fight, War Cry’s throat exploded, and Warlord was forced to talk.”

Whatever biting remark the Chief had planned dissolved. “Exploded?”

“Tech in his neck tried to crush his skull.”

A smile briefly touched his frown. “Guess even his tonsils got sick of his shit. I guess If Warlord performs as well as he did when the V’han invaded, then he could be of use. Anyone else you set to ‘parlay’ with?” 

“Just Doctor Destroyer.”

The small operations center came to a halt. Katrina met each of their gazes, one by one. The Chief slammed his hand on the table. “She didn’t say she was meeting with Dr. Take a Break, did she?” Motion reluctantly resumed as he ran his hand through his thinning hair. For a moment, Katrina felt sorry for the paperwork she generated until the Chief’s gaze drifted to the pistol on her hip. His scowl became a look of fascination. “That’s not standard issue -- Is that--”

“Yes, it’s Caliburn’s pistol. I am cleared by both Caliburn and Major Eckhardt of OSR to carry it, but if it makes things faster, I’ll leave it with you. Just-- let me work all the action to show you its not loaded, but always consider it loaded. It is. ”

The Chief’s gaze was enraptured, and he repeated her words like a commandment. “Loaded when the chamber and magazine are empty. Got it.”

“If you absolutely have to handle it, keep the safety on. It’s got a very light trigger. I don’t think gloves help, but they can’t hurt.”

For a moment, the irritable Chief returned. “Easy Lieutenant. We’re not valet parking. We don’t take the weapons out for a joy ride, but It’d be great to get some pictures.”

“Pictures? Chief, it really doesn’t look all that--”

“I got a collection of about ten pistols at home. Desert Storm, Viet-nam, World War II, even a couple of Revolutionary War pieces. I heard that one kills whatever it shoots.” The soft reverent tone was back as he held out his hand for the weapon, grasping.

“I wouldn’t be given her any more wild ideas.” Drifter's voice echoed before he became visible. “We seemed to be fated to keep meeting in cold rain, Kat. Why don’t you stow Caliburn’s iron and we can talk.”

“There’s worse than a little rain,” Katrina said, signing the visitor log, relieved Drifter’s words had snapped the chief out of his glamour. “But to answer your question, Chief, If the Angel of Death could kill Tyrannon, Caliburn would have already shot it multiple times by now.” She gave him a sympathetic shrug as she slid the pistol into a case and closed the lid. Without the weight of the pistol, her hand felt empty.

“It has a certain pull,” Drifter said as Katrina considered the case. “It promises the path of the righteous, glory on high, all at the squeeze of a trigger. Every moment of weakness, every second of doubt, blown away in a hail of lead. Lots of folks, with the promise of that kind of power in their hands, can’t let it go.”

Katrina massaged her hand. “So I noticed. I would have never expected the power of Elysium would be so great.”

“Not just Elysium. That there piece may be blessed by the Angel of Death, but it, and all the firearms like it, have a legend and a religion all their own.”

“The cult of the gun.”

“Call it what you will,” Drifter said. “Gods are made and shaped by those that pray to them.” Drifter gestured; the world shifted. She was inside, looking out at the ticket line through rain-streaked windows, next to a blue and white booth at the edge of a horseshoe shaped food court. Children ran reflected in a blue and white checked floor outlined in gold. Bustling tourists gave Drifter and her space, but paid them no further mind. Through the camera of her com, she saw the same, nondescript couple the tourists did -- wet with rain, weary but satisfied.

“Clever,” Katrina said as she leaned close to Drifter and sniffed until he took an uncomfortable step back, his face equal parts chagrin and disapproval. 

The smell of ozone and machine oil almost completely masked those other scents -- cigars, bourbon and blood. “I met someone on the docks in MC. Had your way about him, but he looked more-- _ human _ , and he had a chest wound like he’d been stabbed or shot. Who was he? Your past? Your future? A different Drifter?”

Drifter regained his composure. “A little bit of each. Nothing you need worry about. Did Warlord guess what was on your mind?”

“Some of it, but he always got to the fights way too soon, but I kind of expected that. I was thinking about Aesgard -- our Aesgard, not the one I destroyed. It seems like they’d want to help defend Earth from Tyrannon. Maybe the Greek Pantheons, too. I thought Dweomer, Caliburn, and Witchcraft would be all over it, but they’re not.”

“Yup.”

“Why not?”

“They wouldn’t be much help. Humanity gives the gods power over themselves. Like the Kings of Edom, Tyrannon and things like him come from beyond mankind’s faiths, so the power humanity gives them doesn’t work against them. Things like Tyrannon operate on a whole different set of rules -- things well beyond this dimension.” 

“Where did Tyrannon come from? Or has it always been there?”

“I don’t rightly know. Tyrannon isn’t one to share.”

“That’s my other idea. I want to infiltrate the Tyrannon Dimension, learn its secrets, and kill it.”

Drifter shook his head as he slid into the booth. “Now look who’s jumping to the fight. First of all, you mean Thulkos.”

“If Thulkos is the Tyrannon Dimension, then yes,” Katrina said, sliding opposite. “And did you miss the part called ‘learn its secrets’? Some scouting would help us answer some questions.”

“Such as?”

“Such as why it hasn’t attacked yet. What’s it waiting for? Is it digesting its last meal? Witchcraft forced it away from its last meal. If I were Tyrannon, I wouldn’t wait unless I had to. It should know about the Quaternion Banishment by now, and the longer it waits the more time we have to prepare the spell.”

“Good questions, the hard part is the answers. If you haven’t figured, Tyrannon isn’t the sociable type, and the mystic routes to Thulkos are guarded by versions of Tyrannon. It splits off pieces of itself to form emissaries to scout for more realms to devour. Some dimensions manage to appease it, sending millions through mystic gates to the many permutations of Thulkos. Tyrannon uses other parts of itself -- Viceroys -- to rule those dimensions, enforce his will, and guard the borders. All of them -- emissaries, viceroys, even larger pieces -- they’re all connected. What they learn, Tyrannon learns, and it can send more pieces of itself to deal with trouble in the blink of an eye. If you are defeated you are absorbed into Tyrannon, and not only does it know your plans, but you are forever lost.”

“Enough of the positive,” Katrina said wryly. “What’s the downside?”

“It’s all downside, but there is a chance, if you can find a way in that doesn’t cross mystical boundaries.”

“Mystically travel without crossing mystical boundaries. How?”

“By connecting to what’s already there. You find a dimensional intersection and go through the corners. Places I can’t go.”

Katrina rubbed her temples, the very thought of places Drifter couldn’t go was disconcerting. “I thought I was getting this mystic stuff, but that makes no sense.”

“You might know a thing or two, but you ain’t exactly competition for Caliburn yet, and as far as I’m concerned, one gun-slinging mage is enough. Things that are common between dimensions can be jumping off points, if you render them to their barest elements and rise above them.

“So I look for something I can’t comprehend,” Katrina said, “Caliburn’s not going to like me going off his script.”

Drifter shrugged in his duster. “Just because something is beyond your understanding doesn’t mean you can’t relate to it. I wouldn’t sell Caliburn so short. His scripts can get pretty complicated. If I were you, I’d do what you must. It’ll be alright in the end.”

“In that other dimension, didn’t you fade away in the end?”

Drifter shrugged again. “Maybe. Maybe not. That’s alright too. The universe goes on, ‘nless Tyrannon devours it. Everything else is a win. I have to mosey, Kat. Witchcraft’s itching to put the question to Takofanes, and wants to make sure she’s not getting herself suckered by that dusty old lich. Make sure you check yourself out with PRIMUS. People who check in and don’t check out make them all kinds of antsy.” 

Drifter was gone, as he always left, with silence and space. Katrina’s response remained on the tip of her tongue. The illusion faded with Drifter’s departure and she went from invisible to a tourist curiosity. Luckily, the cosplay Vanguard and Brawler drew more attention. She found the shortest food line and convinced the cashier that yes, they could fit three Brawler Protein Bowls into one tub if they skipped the rice. She was still healing from War Cry’s blast and food helped. 

As she ate, her com rattled against the table. Emerald Sentinel. Again. She thought of letting the call go to messaging, then picked it up.

“Lieutenant Mirinova, thank all Gods Fortunate you are alright. I have left messages.”

“I haven’t gotten to them and I’m in public,” Katrina said, a warning that she couldn’t speak freely.

“Understood. No one has contacted you recently?”

“About what?”

“Something I must speak to you about in person, not through this primitive communicator. Forgive me, but a mechanical sounding voice isn’t like being together.”

“I’m on my way to Moscow. It’s six hours by UNTIL jet.”

“I shall meet you there.”

“No, don’t do that. Transportation is all messed up and -- you being who you are, unregistered, it would break a mess of protocols and agreements. I’ll be back in a few days --can it wait until then?”

After a long pause. “Yes, that will have to be sufficient.”

“Are you alright?”

“Yes. I’m more than alright. I’m overjoyed. I--I have found home. Would it be alright to contact them?”

Even across the line, she could hear the ache in Emerald Sentinel’s voice. An alien psychic that enjoyed -- no, craved and thrived -- among the thoughts and emotions of her own kind, being marooned on earth had been a terrible emotional exile. “Why wouldn’t it be? They’re not hostile, are they?”

“Of course not, why would you think such a thing? It’s just the energy consumption is -- considerable. Certainly nothing like the harvested stars of Gilea, but considerable by your contemporary terms.”

“Work it out with UNTIL technical, and if it doesn’t hurt our ability to work on Eschaton, it should be fine. I trust them to make the right call.”

“Thank you so. I will keep my message brief, just to let them know I am alive. The rest -- “

“That will have to wait.”

“May you find what you seek, Lieutenant Mirinova.”

Small victories, Katrina thought as the call ended.

***

_ Sisters of Zaed, it is with joy that I present myself to your mercy.  _

_ I, Julette Sri, Third Scion and First Mind of House Sri, send my warmest regards and a plea that my House Sri, great in their honesty and compassion are in no way to blame for my failure to meet protocols, and fervently pray that the other great houses -- Troi, Bree, Siel, Car, Dann, Mora, Ali, Bia, and greatest of all, Matron of all Houses. Greatest of Great, Renown in Compassion and Honesty, Mighty House V’han, will stay their hand, and mark my words. If, in the course of this message, it is decided that I should carry out my final protocol, then I will consider it a directive from the gods themselves. _

_ But until then, great and noble Houses of Zaed, I beg you hear my report, and advise. While I was the only survivor of our crash landing in Dimension 1842, and greatly injured, I have ensured none of our technology has fallen into the hands of the inhabitants of this dimension, and have situated myself among them as a time traveller, unable to relate future events for fear of spoiling the wonderful future that awaits them. I hope you can appreciate the irony, for what future could be more wonderful than to be brought into the fold of the compassionate and just V’han? _

_ But yet, those very qualities that make them so perfect for the V’han protectorate are the very qualities that have brought Tyrannon the Conqueror, following his rejection by Dimension 1346. This dimension, forewarned by the events in Dimension 1346, prepare to repel Tyrannon, but I fear those efforts, even with my singular assistance, will fail.  _

_ But within that inevitable defeat, great and compassionate Sisters, lies an opportunity to bring Dimension 1842 into the fold -- despite ill-fated earlier attempts by force and without reliance on the lackluster Gadroon. I beg you consider your humble Sister’s words, and bear no malice upon my house, comfortable in the assurance that I will carry forward whatever final directive you might issue to me. _

_ Forever your Servant and Sister, _

_ Julette Sri. _


	6. On the Hunt for Rasputin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katrina keeps on the trail of Baba Yaga, but finds a representative of Destroyer, instead.

There was a terse message from Major Clay’s staff. “Rerouting you to Kiev.” The lack of further explanation meant the reasons were beyond her control, and she was relieved to avoid the maze of paperwork that was Moscow, or the discussions, which began as solicitation to return to the Motherland that evolved into terse reminders of being Russian property. At least she wouldn’t have to break an attache’s nose, again.

Customs made a half-hearted show of secondary screening, and it only took a casual mention of Grand Rapids for her to be on her way with both the shellie and Colt holstered under her jacket. 

The UNTIL office in Boryspil was almost twenty miles out of Kiev. In the street, Katrina was struck by a memory as a girl waiting just beyond the taxi stand, barricaded against the cold in heavy wool, rushing to finish a cigarette before her father emerged from baggage claim. It had snowed then, but now, there was just a damp chill that caused people to huddle into their coats. 

At the taxi stand, she swatted aside the sullen glances from others in line with her own deadpan stare. She let an elderly couple take the cab meant for her and took the next -- a lumbering Volga Gaz. The driver was younger -- a skinny Armenian whose smile turned into a grin as she said her destination in Ukrainian.

“Is that an American accent? Are your parents Ukrainian?”

“My mother.”

“Ah, married up, did she? I don’t see many UNTIL in their pretty blue uniforms. Most of them wear plain clothes outside their big shiny building. They don’t like to advertise.”

“Oh yeah?” Katrina asked, having read the OSR travel advisory.  _ UNTIL agents are known to be highly paid and well-equipped by the local population. Therefore they must be extra vigilant against pickpockets and gangs.  _ She leaned forward, scanning the dashboard, surprised that everything, including the dashboard lights, worked. 

“It can be a long drive to Kiev,” the driver said back to her. “And I like my fares to ride in comfort. You should sit back and buckle your seatbelt. I haven’t had anyone get hurt in all my time driving a taxi and I don’t want to start now.” He flashed a grin in the rearview.

Katrina felt her jaw set at the grin. When they had started dating, Jason’s family with their midwestern sensibilities had been upset that she didn’t smile as much as they did. “I think we can agree that we don’t want anyone hurt -- for now,” 

“Now? Not ever. Sit back, miss. I’ll get you there in no time.” 

Through the windshield she watched the highway twist into thick forest. Katrina scanned the car -- the crisp interior -- with stains that looked right, but smelled as sterile as a hospital. On a steep curve she unsnapped her seat belt and snatched a picture tucked into the sun visor. The startled driver yawped as the car lurched passed the line and toward the ravine before he corrected it. 

“Nice family,” Katrina said with a forced smile. “What are the names of your sons?”

The driver snatched at the photo with one hand, his reach twisting the wheel. The car lurched over the middle line toward the forest. “Hey, what are you doing? You’re being very rude!”

“What are their names?”

“Serge, Ivan. Now put it back. I’m driving here.”

“What about the third?”

He stammered, his attention torn between the twisting road and the photo. “What is this?”

“What’s his name? He’s very handsome.”

“Give it back, or I’ll pull over and throw you out, you spoiled little girl! His name is--”

“There is no third child,” Katrina said, tucking the picture back as the car inched through an intersection, she glanced at the license on the dashboard. “Dimitri? I’ll call you that for now. Who are you? KGB? Spetsnaz?” 

The car settled into a straightaway. The driver’s frantic appearance melted into a cold scowl. “You wanted to talk to the Destroyer,” he said, the Armenian accent gone, his voice soft and refined. “He sent me.”

Katrina sat back in the seat as the cab driver’s round face narrowed and darkened. A neatly trimmed mustache appeared under his nose. the creak of leather the only sound as her hand drifted to the Colt. “Rakshasa.”

“Choose your options carefully, Lieutenant. This car is packed with a considerable amount of incendiaries and explosives. Killing me kills us both. Consider it insurance against an incident like Michigan.”

“Warlord started the fight in Michigan. I’m working on bigger problems.”

“So we have heard. Still, Doctor Destroyer was pleased that you managed to defeat that loudmouth War Cry in such a horrifying manner. The fact that you have emerged unscathed in a confrontation with Warlord is -- impressive.”

“Tyrann-”

“Yes yes, we know all about the Cosmic Cancer, and the harbingers that have come back to warn us of our fate.”

“Then you know how that plays out?”

“We know that there is a great battle in Antarctica and that Witchcraft heroically sacrificed herself -- herselves -- to save our dimension. Somehow, that sacrifice drew Tyrannon’s attention to us, and our dimension is most likely next.”

“Will Doctor Destroyer help? This is much worse than the Gadroon invasion.”

“Join a band of misfits rallied by Defender and Witchcraft? Hardly. Were you wise, you’d follow Doctor Destroyer, and be assured of victory.”

“You and I both know that will not happen, and we both know you will help me anyway.”

Rakshasa sneered, “Your much-vaunted tactical sense is gravely mistaken in this matter.”

Katrina smiled. “Don’t waste my time. Dr. Destroyer will not sit idle while  _ his  _ dimension is devoured. He cannot. The question is not whether he will intervene, but how he will do so.”

Rakshasa pressed the radio knob and the taxi lurched into auto pilot. He groomed his slender mustache in the rearview mirror. “We will not suffer the same soft-hearted fools who let the Gadroon flee to safety after their invasion. No. Doctor Destroyer has his own plans. However, we offer a truce, if not cooperation.”

“Good Enough. I hardly expected him to work with Caliburn,” Katrina said. In truth, she hadn’t expected Caliburn to work with him, either. “Still, when you have finished your business here, I’ll probably need your assistance soon in discussions with others...”

Rakshasa chuckled. “Help  _ you _ ? My loyalty is only to Destroyer, and you, of all people, I have no reason to --” He paused and his smile was dark. “Still I might consider it if you satisfy my curiosity.” 

Katrina shrugged. “What’s your question?”

“Do you remember when you were captured by my master?”

Katrina leaned forward in the seat until she was alongside Rakshasa. Her hand curled around his seatbelt, tightening it slightly. “You mean the time I freed Agent Thresken?”

“Actually, before that regrettable loss, for which your death would please the master greatly, but after you had followed Agent Threskin and became our guest. I’m sure you remember. The master had hoped what had broken Thresken would have worked on you as well. I’m sure the agony was...exquisite.”

Katrina refused the bait. “Oh you mean the time you sunk your master’s island?”

“ _ UNITY _ sunk my master’s island.”

“War Monger got Gigaton so mad he fired one of his gigabolts right through the island into the ocean, but who can remember in the fog of war? “That’s right. I can.” She tapped her temple. “Much vaunted tactical sense and all.”

Rakshasa scowled. “What ridiculous bribe did you offer Warlord for him to help you against the Destroyer?”

Katrina frowned. “None -- oh, well, maybe the knowledge that UNITY would be attacking one of your bases -- a base that happened to be carrying some H’zeel ordinance. It really was too good of an opportunity for Warlord to pass up. But, that technology was protected by yourself, Gigaton, and Black Talon. There’s no way the War Machine could have managed to steal--”

She paused as Raksha’s scowl deepened. 

Katrina chuckled. “Oh _shit_ , you don’t mean they -- Oh, the master must have **_not_** been pleased _.”_

Rakshasa’s mouth twisted into a thin smile. ”Thankfully, the master has saved the bulk of his ire for  _ you _ , the engineer of many, many misfortunes. I myself took solace in watching your torment. After all, everything is recorded for science. I could share them if you like, if you’ve forgotten what it was like to scream.” 

Katrina gripped the seat belt tighter, savoring the thought of strangling Rakshasa with it. “Living in the past? How unlike you. You should be looking to the future.”

“It  _ is _ your future.”

“Is it? The harbingers brought back video from the battle in Antarctica.”

“Do you die? I so hope you do.”

“It’s not my fate you should be concerned about. You know, I must have watched the light fade from your master’s eyes at least a dozen times.”

Rakshasa’s laugh was forced and tight. “Oh,  _ of course _ you have…”

“I have. The video is very, very clear. You can even see the speck in his right iris at what -- ten o’clock?”

Rackshasa drew a breath and for a moment the illusion inside the taxi shimmered Katrina could see the armored interior and the instruments. She held back her pleasure at causing him to break concentration.

“Even if it is true--”

“I can make sure that moment never comes,” Katrina murmured into Rakshasa’s ear before she sat back, and watched Rakshasa struggle to collect himself. Had Rakshasa seen Destroyer’s face and noticed the spot in his eye? It didn’t matter. Rakshasa wasn’t the recipient of that information, not really.

_ He _ was.

Rakshasa wiped at his face, and closed his hands tight on the steering wheel. Of course the taxi was recording them, recording them for  _ him _ to review later. “I will take it under consideration.”

“Do that. I will send instructions when I need you.”

Rakshasa gave a small nod, and shifted back to his Armenian cab driver form and placed his hands on the wheel. With a jolt, the taxi was back under his control as the car approached the city limits of Boryspil. With the boyish grin replaced with a sullen scowl and the glint of fear in his brown eyes, Ukraine intelligence would have a harder time picking him out as a pretender.

***

Adamant had delivered more than Katrina expected -- Selsky’s notebook on Scimitar along with a memory stick and a vial -- a blood sample sealed for dozens of years, useless to almost any scientist. Still, Emerald Sentinel had proven to be more than an ordinary scientist, and Caliburn wasn’t a scientist at all. 

A technician transferred the data to Millennium City and prepared a lock box for overnight delivery for the notebooks and the blood with instructions to send at least one drop of the blood to Robert Caliburn in Vibora Bay with a brief note  _ \-- You know what to do with it. _

Her first stop was the Intelligence Office to report on Rakshasa and his whereabouts and to get the latest on Scimitar. The officer at the desk held out a boxy com unit to her. 

“The Russian Federation manages all UNTIL communications in the region,” he said. His name patch said ‘Stebbins’. The expression on his pale, round face showed he expected resistance.

Katrina considered the device -- made twice as heavy and half again larger than her Harmon standard -- bulked up with eavesdropping circuitry. Still, thrown hard enough, she could probably crack a tactical helmet with it. “Home, sweet home. Does it come with its own backpack?”

Stebbins grunted without a smile. Ukranian or not, he’d learned not to grin like an idiot. “It's not, but you’ll use it while you’re here. We all do.”

“I had hoped for a bit more  _ willing _ cooperation between the Russian military and UNTIL. We gave them everything we had about the current threat, and Caliburn’s plans.”

Stebbins glanced at the walls and shook his head slightly. Katrina responded with a shrug. Of course the office was bugged, but she didn’t care. By tomorrow, the entire region would know she was back. By then she hoped to be on a jet back to Millennium City. 

Stebbins slid across a manila package across the table. The aerial photos inside were grainy, but the shapes unmistakable, but still dark lettering punctuated the ghostly images. Chernobyl.

“Rasputin’s last known location was here.” He stabbed his finger at a photo. “Unfortunately, UNTIL is not allowed into that region. The Russian Federation is conducting military exercises.”

“Russian Federation forces in Ukraine?”

“Exercises. With full consent from the Ukranian Government.”

“ _ Consent  _ consent, or more ‘She wasn’t strong enough to fight him off’ consent?”

“Supposedly real consent, But for exercises, they’re sure shooting a lot of heavy ordinance.”

“Toward nothing,” Katrina said, pointing out the section of the map emphatically labeled “uninhabited” in the Zone. 

“So uninhabited, the map printer put it in bold  _ and _ underlined it. I guess that makes it uninhabited,” Stebbins said. 

“But the last I’d seen, not so uninhabited.“

“You’ve been to Chernobyl before?”

“Yeah, I helped with the second sarcophagus. I’d recovered from radiation before, so it seemed like a good idea at the time.

“Was it?”

“Let just say if those left in the Exclusion Zone got with the Irradiates with Greenskin, the babies would glow like fireflies. Still, Rasputin isn't the kind of target you go after with heavy ordinance. What else are they after?”

Stebbins repeated his shrug. “You sure? Rasputin did survive being poisoned, shot, wrapped in a rug and thrown into an icy river. Maybe they just want to be sure. But it wouldn’t be the first time Special Forces brought the wrong equipment to a fight.”

“If they’re lucky Rasputin won’t convince them to start conducting exercises at each other. No, the operation you’re describing is a different hunt.” 

“Lieutenant, I think everyone would be a lot more comfortable if we didn’t have pieces of the Russian Military shooting at each other. But we’re blind to the current situation.”

“Right. I’d like a sky cycle.”

“Did you miss the part about UNTIL being restricted from the z--”

“I’m on a mission from the archmage. Caliburn squared it all away with Gyeroy Vedun.”

“According to Moscow, Gyeroy Verdun has nothing good to say about Caliburn.”

“Mages,” Katrina said with a shrug. “Master Verdun voted for Caliburn as archmage. Didn’t your OSR rep tell you?”

“OSR hasn’t seen him in Months. Last time they did meet, Verdun made it clear he considers the OSR like Moscow: Something to be admired from afar. And in the case of Moscow, the feeling is mutual--”

“About that skycycle--”

“--However, Captain Ukraine seems to have high regard for you, and provided the locations of current Federation actions.” He slid the access key to the sky cycle across the table. “But I’ll have to officially inform you,” Stebbins said to the walls, “That you’ll have to apply for access to the Exclusion Zone.”

“I imagine I’ll have to apply to leave it, as well?”

“And for permission to use your powers. And permission to carry the archmage’s pistol.”

“Is the plan for Moscow to bury me in paperwork?”

The intelligence chief held up his hands. “Don’t shoot the messenger -- especially with that pistol.”

“It’s alright. I know how my homeland operates. Where do I apply?”

“The Kremlin Office of Superhuman Visitors opens at 10 am tomorrow.”

“What? Back to Moscow when -- “ She paused. “Hmm, the office will open more like eleven, if I know Moscow time. So I’ll lose at least two days filling out forms, having them rejected and having to fill them out again.” Katrina wondered if the paperwork and delays were to give the Army time to complete their operation. 

The intelligence chief handed Katrina a fresh blaster, and a carbine. “Those are the rules, Lieutenant.”

“Of course. Hey can I get a rack? I’d like to get some rest before I drop by the Office of Visiting--”

“Office of Superhuman Visitors.”

“Right.”

“Just trying to save you a form. If you go to the wrong office you’ll have to fill out a transfer form. There a spare rack on level 3, wing A.”

“Appreciate it, Sergeant Stebbins.”

With a curt nod, Katrina left, but went to the hangar instead of the racks. Sadly, someone had left the side hangar door unlocked, which was just wide enough to slide a cycle through. Of course there were rules -- society was built on the rules -- rules that were made and rules that were ignored. Moscow might throw a fit, but the world had changed and the entangling web of bureaucracy seemed quaint in comparison. As she kicked the sky cycle into high torque and shot out of the hangar, she hoped she’d given the intelligence officer enough cover.


	7. Chernobyl and the Covenant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katrina finds Rasputin in Pripyat and a great deal more.

Five kilometers shy of Pripyat and a good four hours before sunrise, the northern skyline flashed like dawn, then erupted in a row of fireballs. The explosions were at least a dozen miles away, deep in the Exclusion zone. Katrina gunned the bike upward, and he tree line she had hugged so closely melted into a carpet that flickered between dull amber and midnight. As she rose, the bike bucked from the shockwave of the blasts and Katrina forced it to hover and scanned the horizon with her binoculars. At her current altitude, even the great mound of the sarcophagus over the ruins of reactor four became just so much topography until another bloom outlined the silhouette of an insect gargantua -- half praying mantis and half centipede, clutching the wreckage of a T-90 battle tank in its forelegs. More explosions and tracer fire told Katrina the fight was just getting started.

“Some exercise,” she muttered. Hopefully, the gargantua was another horror spawned by Chernobyl -- or the experiment Reactor Four had been meant to power -- and not one of Tyrannon’s servants. As secretive as Russia, Belarus and Ukraine were with each other, Tyrannon could set up a beachhead and have absorbed half the dimension and Moscow would still be in denial. But, with at least a half dozen  _ known  _ installations from Vorkuta to the Bering Sea, Warlord would have the best intel on the battle to the north, which she could pass on to Captain Ukraine and Moscow. He was a psychopath, but at least he understood the stakes. 

She approached the battle as far as Novoshepelichy village but resisted the urge to join in and dove downward, skimming the treeline toward downtown Pripyat. Running silent at low idle she searched the shadowed ruins for the tallest building that seemed the most stable to land on. A concrete skeleton with a few walls intact loomed above the squat detritus below with a good view of the sarcophagus and the remaining reactor towers to the south.

She chanced a lengthwise landing on a concrete beam that peaked above the sagging roof around it. After gingerly testing the stability of the beam, she slid off and hefted the bike to her shoulder and set it behind a billboard of a hammer and sickle on a faded globe. With the flashes of the battle at her back, it was easier to spot a faint glow to the southeast. The placement seemed familiar. Did someone re-light the eternal flame of dedication to those that died responding to the explosion of Reactor Four? No -- light was too large, too bright for that abandoned monument. Loathe as she was to use it, she switched on the communicator provided by Stebbins, already missing her regular Harmon model, but hoping it could tell if anyone else was in the area.

The screen pulsed for a moment and the device grew warm in her hand as it churned to find a connection. After several agonizing minutes it stopped, with a simple message that read ‘Error’. It could have meant the relay stations at the Exclusion Zone checkpoints were down. Maybe the checkpoint teams had gotten orders to bug out, or that the device was another triumph of Russian engineering. If the checkpoints were unattended, that was a stroke of luck -- as long as the gargantua didn’t decide to come for the sarcophagus and remained far north of the city.

In a side compartment of the cycle, Katrina took the geiger counter and the ventilation mask, but left the rest and snuck down the outside fire escape relying on the dim night sky to provide just enough light to see. As she leapt down from the final flight, the ground trembled from an enormous explosion from the north and dust drifted down from the long-abandoned buildings.

Along the dim path a tilted statue of Lenin looked resolutely toward the reactor complex, standing firm on a cracked pedestal alongside the road. The form was deeply corroded, the pitted face smeared with dirt. As dead ivy formed a twisted webbing over his torso. She paused at the sight, and shook the cobwebs of childhood memory free. There was no escaping his visage when she had been growing up in Kiev. Papa loved Lenin -- the Father of Russia -- but saved his adoration for their trips to Moscow. Mother had said nothing, while many of her friends spit on the ground after saying his name.

Katrina patted the Colt on her hip, and whispered, “You might have killed more, but he got other people to do it.”

Despite the rumble of artillery, Katrina heard a shuffle down one of the broken streets. A small herd of deer silently grazed near the rusted remnants of a pickup truck. In the light of another explosion, she caught sight of a footprint in the exposed dirt of the broken street. The left half of the track was a normal boot print, but the right side was a thick, club-shaped paw. Further down the road, she heard the sound of more steps and hid among the statues of the monument.

They were a handful -- people, once -- a sickly cluster of spindly limbs and hollow eyes kept pace with a towering brute who leaned on a thick sapling as he labored forward. His steps alternated between a mud-crusted boot and a thick, fleshy lump. His gaze -- a dirty flap of skin covering the melted left side of his face-- scanned the streets with a dim green gaze. Their clothing consisted of tattered suits and gowns -- finery perhaps at one time. Their exposed arms and legs covered with black, wet sores. Katrina frowned. The radiates at Greenskin had much more energy while this group seemed crippled and lifeless. She waited until she could no longer hear them and took a side street toward the sarcophagus, with a careful eye on her geiger counter, but the needle scarcely moved even as she approached the main entrance. 

The low rumble to the north made the entrance all the more familiar. Moscow had magnanimously allowed UNTIL to participate in the construction of a second containment sarcophagus, though the pressure on Moscow to allow them to do so had come from mystics like Gyeroy Verdun -- perhaps the first real indicator to the West that the accident at Chernobyl had been beyond an atomic power plant explosion. On arrival, everyone followed the contingent from Project Hermes as much as they watched their dosimeters. 

Working on the second containment vessel had given plenty of testimony to the rampant madness in the wake of the rupture of Reactor Four. Less than a construction, the first sarcophagus was more of a mountain of concrete and rubble adorned a haphazard tattooing of runes. Abandoned bodies lay where they had fallen, the blackened bones puddled like melted wax. 

It was then Katrina discovered she had a knack for picking up the otherworld disturbances that were already escaping the confinement of the first vessel. She still remembered the concrete delivery where she stopped cold on the walkway, but couldn’t explain why to the foreman. Sav had shoved past her and in three steps turned inside out. He stood for a second until his organs sloughed to the ground and exposed arteries erupted.

The next foreman put Katrina in front.

Now, Katrina walked over the same spot undisturbed as she crossed the catwalk to the secondary barrier, where she should have felt -- something. All that energy -- It was just gone, and the geiger counter seemed dead to energies the mages had said would take centuries to dissipate.

Katrina doubled back, a growing uneasiness etching its way through her mind. The miraculous dissipation of corruptive energy coupled with Rasputin did not bode well, and the smattering of tracks she followed merged into another group at each intersection, until they were an uncountable hoard that, after several streets, joined a tangled queue in front of the sagging spires of a dimly let church perched at the apex of a neglected cul-de-sac. 

As she studied the church, she recalled weathered steps like those at the entrance, and the smell of incense that thrust through the thick veil between her life before the vessel and being awoken by Argent, after. As she approached the church from the shadows, she got the smell became denser, as did the memories -- the pews and the priest waving the censor of heady smoke, her mother pinching her arm when she started to doze. In that moment, she could see her mother’s face -- sternly-lined with eyes as brown as Katrinas. It was a face she hadn’t ever pictured before. She wondered if it was memory, or just some fancy.

Or a trick of Rasputin’s.

Katrina pushed the reverie away as the line extended into the street even as those in front steadily flowed into the church. Those unable to walk were supported by their stronger fellows. But none of them looked as powerful or as animated as those at Greenskin. There, the radiates thrived in their brutal communities, but here, a glance at the geiger counter confirmed that their power was almost depleted. 

Katrina slipped into the shadows of the cul-de-sac and followed the perimeter of the church. Once she passed the facade, she realized the church was not a simple, one room building, but an enormous oblong amphitheater. Mega churches hadn’t caught on in Russia like they had in America, but this derelict monstrosity would have qualified. Through a broken pane of stained glass she saw torchlight and the amphitheater bowl almost full. She guessed there were thousands, dirty and deformed, all clustered on the benches listening to Rasputin at the altar. Unlike his dirty congregants, he appeared every bit the presbyter in cassock and Kamilavka with veil. It took but a moment for his gaze to find hers, and she glanced away as his whisper trailed off in her mind. Dr. White had warned about looking into his eyes. So much for surprise.

When no one came to apprehend her, she circled back to the main entrance and shouldered her rifle as she walked up the sagging staircase into the ruined lobby. The carpet, trampled slick with mud held shadows of its previous design through the layers of grime. She followed a group down the hallway, careful not to rush as the infirmed shuffled along. They glanced back, at first wary, then their expressions seemed to soften in recognition. The familiarity prickled at the back of her neck, but she pressed forward into the amphitheater. Others had slipped in behind her, ambling on wildly bowed legs, their expressions were nonthreatening, but something akin to reverence.

The seats were full in the amphitheater, people were already beginning to stand, while others shuffled off to the galleries above. Despite the crowd, the only voice was Rasputin’s -- which sounded clear all the way to the back even without amplification. “Come forward, Katrina Mirinova. I’ve been expecting you.”

The greeting felt far more like a condemnation than a welcome. Katrina walked down the aisle, ignoring the stench of rot and death that clung to the parishioners. The geiger counter clicked steadily surrounded by so many, with even the gallery packed with grotesque forms all focused with rapt attention on Rasputin as he stood at the altar, his salt and pepper beard neatly braided all the way to his waist. He cradled a fist-sized crystal that pulsed with emerald energy in his hands. At the sight of the gem, the sensation that Katrina had been expecting came full force as a hot itch at the back of her neck. His eyes sought out hers and she averted her gaze to lessen his influence even as she raised the Colt toward him.

Rasputin kissed his fingers and crossed himself. “And so comes the bearer one of the deadliest weapons a child of God may carry. But you, you are no child of God, are you?”

“I’ve been called worse than a child of the Devil,” Katrina said, using his shadow from the lights to gauge his position.

“Did I say that? Only one who had consorted with demons could possibly know for certain. No, nothing so benal, Katrina Mirinova.” 

Doctor Black’s words came back to her.  _ Avoid his riddles.  _ “Where is Baba Yaga? I was told you knew where she was.”

Rasputin tucked his hands within his sleeves. “She could be drowning innocents in the fens of Siberia, or exciting volcanoes in the Kamchatka Peninsula. But what business do you have with that wretched crone?”

“Just tell me where she is, and I’ll be on my way.”

“And if I do not?”

“Then I arrest you and take you to Moscow.”

“Moscow? And here I thought you were a girl from the Ukraine.”

“Moscow hates you more.”

Rasputin shook in his robes with amusement. “My parishioners would not like you taking me away, after all the work I have done to ease their suffering. Look well, Katrina Mirinova, or this church can seat twenty five thousand if a soul, and there is nowhere left to sit, even as more come. But, do them a service, and I will tell you what you need to know.”

She could hear Caliburn’s voice now.  _ I told you not to bargain with Rasputin, and what did you do? You bargained with him.  _ “I will not agree to anything until I know the terms.”

“The terms, Katrina Mirinova, have already been set. God has answered their prayers and brought you, and an instrument of the Angel of Death. You will give succor to this wretched mass.”

Katrina drew a breath and shook her head. “I will do no such thing.”

“Is not Azrael’s instrument in your hand?”

Katrina shoved the Colt into its holster. She looked at the mangled forms to her right and left. Their faces were soft, pleading.  _ Do not bargain. Do not listen to him.  _ But they had. She raised her voice and addressed the congregation. ”Wait, there are doctors in Moscow, they can help--”

“They remember the doctors that came,” Rasputin said, his voice rising above hers. “They came with their samples and their suits and their radiation counters. They took blood, and skin, and then they took people away. None of those taken have returned, and now -- now even the doctors have not returned. Science has forsaken them, and so they turn to God.”

“There are doctors outside of Russia, outside of Ukraine,” Katrina tried to force her voice above his, but even she felt the congregation’s despair, fed by Rasputin’s words.

Rasputin tsked. “Do not deceive them further, child. Science deformed them, and cannot unmake its ruin. Would you let them suffer, so?” He rolled the green crystal in his hands. “They have given the last of their energy that Chernobyl gave them -- a power much like those Greenskin radiates, is it not? Now it is mine, given freely in exchange for an end to their suffering. And here you are.”

“They gave you--” Katrina scowled back at Rasputin. “You manipulative ass, you persuaded them--” But rather than wonder how Rasputin had taken most of their radioactive energy, She bolted to the door. Back at the air-cycle, she could call for support, medicine, and food. She skidded through the slick hallway where the entrance opened wide, but instead of racing through the entrance, she slammed into an invisible wall and staggered back. She pushed forward carefully with her hand toward the open air, only to be stopped by a smooth, cold surface that hummed against her palm. The shellie’s blasts sputtered against the barrier. She switched the Colt and aimed at the night beyond the doorway. The wall flared, and the shot tore through the wall behind her.

“Even a blessing from the Angel of Death holds sway over a covenant of sincere prayer. Give them what they ask, Katrina Mirinova,” Rasputin’s voice resonated in the dim, empty hallway. “If you will not, I will give them enough of their energy back to tear you apart as an offering to the Angel of Death, who will grant their release.”

“That. Makes no sense…” Katrina said, her sigh turning into an exasperated growl. A prayer and a lie. How perfectly Rasputin. The charlatan had stolen their irradiate energies, focused their prayers into a celestial covenant. Then he lied to make them kill for him. She fired three more shots against the barrier as a sound louder than the pistol echoed down the hallway. 

They scrambled into the hallway, the green glow to their eyes bright, fueled by Rasputin’s power and lies. They no longer shuffled, but ran in a feral dash. The Colt needed no coaxing out of its holster and poured holy fury into the heart of the mad rush. But the distended faces and twisted bodies charged through the gore of their brethren. Katrina ran forward, firing into the crowd, then zigged at the last second into a small room, firing continuously at the opposite wall so she could barrel through the weakened structure, the crash of her pursuers right behind. Katrina fired behind her when she could, staying just ahead of the throng as she raced back into the amphitheater, eager for a chance to get a shot at Rasputin. 

But the pulpit was empty with the backstage choked with debris. Instead, they were there, no longer patient in the pews. As they rushed forward with a howl, Katrina saw a crumpled pack on the floor -- hopefully a clue to where the mad monk had gotten off to. She snatched it up just before they were at her, and the Colt was already firing into the first of them, splatting everyone with gore. Still they came, and the Colt had bullets for all, and Katrina circled and clambered over the bodies then on them as they became the floor, and still they rushed and staggered and crawled after her. She held a star in her hand as the barrel glowed hot, but never failed to fire with a steady roar. 

There was no time, there were only the faces and the fingers that clawed on her. She no longer felt the Colt in her hand but didn’t stop shooting, shoving against the press as they lunged, occasionally punching, but shooting, always shooting until there were no more and the only screaming Katrina heard was her own. 

She collapsed in silence by the altar, and drew a ragged breath. The seconds slid by in perfect silence as she surveyed the mound of bodies and made sure none were moving. Somehow, she had managed to stay above the tide, in place three and four bodies deep. Her hand ached, and with her other hand, twisted the colt out of her frozen grip, her teeth grit against the agony as burned glove and flesh clung to the handgrip. She cleared the altar and rested her hand against it. The medical kit held scissors and a pair of tweezers. When her other hand stopped shaking, she wiped her face and pried the burned glove from what was left of her hand, cursing softly under her breath in Russian, thinking about what she would do to Rasputin the next time they met.

She would have to tell command -- about the church, the covenant, everything. The dead deserved a burial -- their only crime was living in the Exclusion Zone and believing Rasputin’s lies. Had he teleported with a spell, or had he stolen the technology from someone else? And to capture the power of Chernobyl into a gem. He was more dangerous than ever.

As she staggered to the entrance, a shuffling sound caught her attention in the hallway. It had come from behind the door of a broom closet. She listened, and heard more shuffling. Her left hand was still useless, so she holstered the pistol and turned the knob. In the wan light, the deformed gazes were terrified and still. At first she thought they were so small because they were huddled, but ravaged as they were, the faces looked younger, softer. They lacked the fervent Chernobyl energy from before. 

They were a dozen twisted faces, blighted by oozing, cancerous growths. Despite their deformities, their terror was all too plain. But of them all, Katrina was sure she looked the more terrifying, her tac armor black slick with gore, her hand a blackened, clawed ruin. 

The words caught in her throat.  _ I’m not a killer. I’m here to help. _

“You can’t be part of the covenant,” Katrina said to the huddled forms, even though she knew they were, and yet would not understand her words. She closed the door as she left to spare them the sight of the massacre, and stepped as carefully she could to the entrance. Still, the barrier held, the covenant unfulfilled. 

Katrina labored to move the bodies and provide a flat section of floor for her to work and then took out the Colt in her good hand. Mentiac would have been able to work out the angle and the physics to determine where a shot would bounce, but she had to do it by feel. She angled the Colt at the doorway, guessing where the ricochet should hit the wall behind her. She fired, made note of the hold in the wall, and adjusted, narrowing her angle. She fired again, just a little low. The third shot hit exactly anticipated. She held the Colt a little to her side and stepped back to the wall as far as she could, to give herself as much time as possible, hoping that the tiniest fraction of a second was enough.

She fired, twisting the Colt sideways. The force of the ricochet felt like it would tear her arm off. Sparks burned across her face from the impact of an unstoppable bullet and unbreakable pistol. She dropped the pistol to keep the heat from ruining her good hand and it sizzled against the floor, the heat rippling in waves around the Colt, casting wild shadows that rippled as the metal slowly cooled.

The shadows coalesced, forming a tall, gaunt shadow against the wall. Two bullet holes in the walls formed red pinpricks for eyes. The shadows shifted accusingly toward her with a towering sentience that felt as equal parts chagrin and disgust.

“You dare,” it said as shadowed wings flowed across the walls. Under their span, Katrina saw the billions who have had the spark of life for it to be reclaimed. She saw its form pass by the painted lintels in Egypt, and saw it harvest from the Machetes in Rwanda. She saw life support turned off and the last looks of families. The wars, the famines. The eternal cycle of ending.

“I-I can’t. I won’t,” Katrina said, but if her defiance meant anything to the Angel of Death, it was unmoved.

“The covenant is cast. His Word will not be denied.”

“I will not shoot children.”

“Then thirst shall take them, and the covenant shall be met.”

Katrina rubbed her head with her good hand. Dying of thirst was worse than a shot to the back of the head. But the others -- they would wait in the dark, smell the blood and the cordite. They would hear the bark of gunfire, see those before them, waiting in horrific silence for their turn. No.

“Then it doesn’t have to be this,” she picked up the pistol. It had returned to its cooler shade but was still warm in her hand. The metal was discolored where the bullet had struck, but the action still worked. She holstered the weapon and flexed her left hand slightly. “Let me have another way.”

“You are the instrument.”

“Then let me choose how,” Katrina said as cold certainty crept upon her.

The shadows shifted as it considered her words. “Time cannot be your method.”

“I’m not trying to trick you. I just -- can’t -- do this to them. This is their time and they shall go, but let me make my own means.”

A wing collected itself and peeled off the wall. It shimmered translucent in the air. “You will do His will.”

Katrina nodded.

The wing touched her forehead. The power of the Word exploded cold. She saw a battlefield, strewn with the bodies of hoplites and elephants, mixed with Roman infantry. The grim face of King Pyhrrus, who left friends and vital commanders behind --  _ another such victory shall utterly undo us. _

She sensed surprise from the angel. “You have been death before. You shall have your boon.”

Of a universe of shapes, Katrina kept her own, but purged the blood from her armor, and hid the pistols and carbine. As she opened the door, she let the hallway be bathed in light, the floor pristine and perfect. Even so, they were afraid.

Katrina knelt by the youngest, and touched his face to sooth his fear. Nothing like the power of Chernobyl, but the power of Grace.

“It has been hard, and I am so very sorry. Would you like to go home?”

The child was bewildered but she soothed his fear with a word while behind her, the door to the hallway opened. The man was clean shaven and healthy, the woman warm and radiant. Their smiles beckoned.

“You shouldn’t keep them waiting, Artem,” Katrina said, his name to her lips as she willed. “Are you--”

But Artem had already risen, his face fresh and healthy as he looked back, then dashed through into light, the broken body he left behind slumped into Katrina’s arms. She worried the others would see, but their attention was at the door, save a thin, scabby girl who looked at her with hope in one eye.

“I want to go next.”

She was Iryna, and after was Krylo, and then Alek, Maksim, Lyrisa, Olexiy, Taras, Bohdan, Borys (brothers), Marina, and Katya. All went joyous to a light, leaving their moral agonies behind. Katrina choked a sob as the light in the doorway faded.

“The covenant is met,” Azrael said, “but the door remains open for you.”

Katrina wiped her face and shook her head. “I can’t. This universe--”

“Yes. This universe. And what you seek is through the Palace of Death.”

Katrina stood and approached the lintel. There was no hallway beyond, but a flat, impenetrable darkness. “How would you know--”

“You have been that which sealed the covenant. I know.”

Katrina took a breath, and walked through.


	8. Terraformation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Proteep the Younger, a Gadroon Lancer, encounters an alien he hadn't planned on.

Proteep the Younger found recognition by the humans disconcerting and thought something was wrong with his disguise, other than his human face was well above his head, so everyone looked over him. Gradually he realized their attention was only how well his disguise was working - and their familiarity was an invitation to a closer level of personal society -- something Proteep the Younger wished to avoid; he only wanted to linger in the warm humidity of the greenhouse and taste pollen in the air. 

Once, in a euphoria from the warm humidity, he had plucked a leaf from the woody stem of a flower, and without thinking, stuffed it into his mouth. He was so taken with the salty, bright flavor he had failed to notice the human watching until it was too late. His mind had reeled at the protocol. Should he, as was sociable, spit up half to share? He had hurried out without a word, vowed never to return, and changed his route to avoid being seen near the flower shop. 

For a week after the incident he had suffered the dry, foul air of Millennium City. His request to return to the Terraforming project was denied by the Commander himself, who offered empty promises of a time called ‘Summer’. It was no use. He re-revised his route, and wished he had gotten the plant’s name. His mouth itched for the taste. But all he dared was to stare longingly through the paned glass as warm mist enveloped the greenery with warm clouds.

“Aren’t they beautiful?”

He hadn’t noticed the human to his left until she had spoken.

“Yes.” He said, trying to sound agreeable, but not  _ too _ agreeable, and turned to go. Was she the one who had seen him eat the leaf before? They all looked so similar, but that woman had been larger, taller. This woman had brown hair, clipped neat and short like so many that walked around their Mayor’s palace. His chest was mirrored in her sunglasses as she look at his eyes, not the hologram’s.

“Please, do not go,” she said, and something in her voice caught him short. 

He swallowed as his mind scrambled for excuses. “I cannot associate with you. I am in a long-term relationship with my wife.” This human didn’t laugh, as others had previously.

“If I may, having a ‘wife’ implies a long term relationship, so a human would not say that. Instead, say, ‘I am married.’ But there is little in my overtures which would elicit such a response.”

There were other humans on the street. He could not just shoot her with his grav pistol and be done with it. But really, Proteep the Younger just wanted to run.

“There is no need for weapons. I wish to talk, and it is not wise to talk here,” she said, and nodded toward the greenhouse. “Come. I love looking at the flowers, and we can speak in comfort.”

“I--”

“Will be late,” she said, as she stepped closer, and murmured, “Wouldn’t your Commander understand if you were detained in order to ‘fit in’? It’s very nice inside. Just a few minutes.”

As he walked toward the entrance, he activated a beacon to summon the nearest cloaked observer. It wouldn’t be able to enter the shop, but it would record their coming and going. Maybe something in the archives would tell him of this human. Earth had many defenders -- PRIMUS, UNTIL, even what they called superheroes. 

Proteep sensed he was doomed. At least he would die in comfort.

In the greenhouse, the human took an apron from a hook and said to the woman who presided behind the selling device, “It’s time for your break.” With hardly any recognition, the seller of flowers left. Those remaining humans that wandered the aisles deliberately exited, one by one.

A telepathic species, Proteep decided as the glassy-eyed humans left them alone in the greenhouse. She couldn’t be Sirian -- her skin was an unhealthy pallor of pink, not green -- and his scanners detected no holograms. Besides, the Malvans had destroyed all the Sirians, hadn’t they? He mused through the telepathic species as the woman wandered the aisles, sniffing at some flowers, admiring others. She stopped at the flower he had tasted before and selected a pot with a vibrant specimen. She presented it, arms outstretched.

_ “Atropa belladonna _ . Most just call it Belladona, or Deadly Nightshade. It is toxic to humans in high doses, not to mention extremely bitter. It is yours.”

“What am I to do with it?” Proteep asked, at a loss.

“Accept it. Say thank you. It’s what humans do.”

“You are playing games.”

“I am preserving your cover. Human technology cannot easily pierce your hologram, and in this endeavour I do not serve them. Take the Nightshade. Just do not eat it here.”

Proteep held the pot in his outstretched arms. “Thank you.” He tried to smile, which never seemed to have the reassuring effect he hoped for no matter how hard he forced the corners of his holographic mouth upward. He had no idea how he was going to explain this to the Commander. “What do you want?”

The human took out a pencil-like device that blinked and warbled as she ran it over a flower. “Just as I suspected. Leaf rot. Too much moisture.” She sprinkled a pale, sandy powder at the base of the flower. “What I want, to be blunt, is to find you a new homeworld, so that you do not continue to try to conquer this one, for if you try to do so, you will most likely fail, and your species will become extinct.”

Proteep glared at her, the grip on the pot made his knuckles white. How dare she belittle the Gadroon so? But to argue -- She knew so much that any engagement seemed dangerous. “I-I-I do not know what you speak of.”

“I would say the same in your position. I meant no offense. You may succeed, but if you do, plants like that will die after you terraform the planet.”

“It is only a plant,” Proteep said.

“Yes. Though you value it more than the billions of humans that live here. But, compared to your family -- your species -- it is a small sacrifice, though it is not the only one. What of those Gadroon who needlessly perish? Tell you Commander I wish to represent your interests, and find a solution to your dilemma.” 

“You will not treat with my leader.”

“Of course not,” she said as she poked at the selling machine, adding green slips of paper to its drawer. “I will treat with you, provided you are given authority from your Commander. I respect compartmentalization. For now, tell your Commander that I have felt what it is like to lose a homeworld, to wander the black. What it’s like to fail, and die on worlds that will not sustain you. How it makes even the most honorable do desperate, terrible things.”

“If you are done, I will go.” He said. 

When she removed her sunglasses, her eyes were a pupil-less void -- space without stars. “Go then. I suggest you make your report in private. If you tell your Commander anything, tell them that your Empress will never let you keep this planet.”

With the plant in his outstretched hands, he couldn’t see if the observer had arrived or was recording. “We have no Empress, which only shows how little you know of--”

“If I am mistaken, so is someone called Saaloxt. When we meet again, you can tell me more of your culture and how you select leaders.”

He couldn’t leave fast enough, the plant clutched close to his chest. A block away, he released the observer, but not before removing his data from the feed that the observer would eventually send to Canada. 

HIs communicator in his triglepa hummed against his arm. He cradled the plant, and twisted his wrist to see the screen. The Commander’s expression was sour.

“Lancer, report to me at once.”

“At once, Commander Saaloxt.”

***

“Forgive me Commander, I thought I was preserving my disguise.”

The commander grunted. Commander Saalxort hid his reactions with grunts, sometimes just a single blink of his eyes. “I have the observer’s scans. The alien’s species is nonesuch that we have in our databases. Perhaps the Home Fleet will have more. Many of her bio signs -- body temperature, heart beat -- they were within human parameters. Are you sure she is an alien?”

“She was clever to not face the windows when she lifted her glasses, but I am sure she is not a terran, Commander. And she -- she spoke of the--”

“Empress, and mentioned me by name.”

“I have told no one, Commander.”

“Your discretion is noteworthy. Until we can determine how she has gotten information about the Empress and myself, perhaps it is best to preserve your discretion of your encounter with this spy.”

“Commander, I”

“Speak your mind, Lancer, and you have my discretion, as well.”

“The orders to stop terraforming. They were from the Empress?”

Commander Saalxort’s barley nodded in the affirmative.

“But Commander, why has she ordered us to stop what was looking like a successful operation?”

“That, Lancer, is known only to the Empress, and perhaps those that directly recieve her orders. We are told to have faith in her plan.”

“We are told, Commander.”

“We are told, Lancer and we shall obey, but we shall also find out more about this alien and her promise of a homeword.”

“And her gift?”

“Simply a terran plant, Commander. It won’t live a week on base, but perhaps how long it survives will be of some academic interest. But of her promise to help find a homeworld? Her words are empty.”

“Most likely. What has she asked in exchange for such a grand promise?”

“To stop attacking this planet.”

Commander Saalxort snorted. “She seeks to bargain and beg for this world? She’s not even human. No, she must have other motivations, but this much is true: She knows what we want, which gives her an advantage. We must learn what she wants, Meet with her, tell her nothing, but remember what she asks. Have a strike team ready to capture and interrogate her if the opportunity presents itself. I will select these Adjudicators myself. Maintain your discretion.”

“I am your Lancer, Commander.”

“You will have an observer with you at all times. But I will review what we learn before sending it to the Home Fleet.”


	9. Beyond the Black Veil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katrina continues her hunt for Thulkos

In the darkness, all Katrina could see were echoes of light from the church. She crouched, trying to get a sense of her surroundings without vision. The air smelled recycled, with traces of oil and ozone. The floor was warm and metallic against her fingernails. 

After a time, there was motion -- a subtle shift in the floor downward and to the side, then a stop. The other side rose, fell, and stopped, and the cycle began again. In time with a walking gait so gently that a glass of water wouldn’t have shimmered, she stepped forward and probed in front of her with the tip of the colt. After almost thirty steps, the barrel tapped against a metal surface and echoed. A polite cough followed.

“Kat, I’ve really hope you don’t start shooting now.”

The familiarity of the voice, the impossibility of it added to her confusion.  _ Jason?  _ She strained to find a source for the voice, but it seemed to come from everywhere, but not through a speaker, but more like telepathy. She focused her mind to protect her thoughts.

“Kat? Its hard to tell which is worse: You shooting or the silent treatment.”

“It can’t be you.”

“Only a fool deals in absolutes,” he said. His voice had that same gentle amusement she remembered.

“You really believe that?”

“Absolutely,” he said. 

Katrina could picture his smirk. “Just because you know one of his old jokes doesn’t make you him.”

“You were really annoyed that I made potholes in the street when I landed too hard. Those ones in front of Homestead I did on purpose to see you again. Our first date was at Hi Pan’s Noodles. You ordered the Spirit of the Dragon platter. The soju was sour, and we got beer instead, after I suggested vodka.”

“Cut the act. Jason’s dead.” Katrina felt the words hang in the darkness and dissolve in silence. 

“I was. I died in Valhalla. You told me I would, that it was the only way. I know if there had been another way, you’d have found it.”

Katrina strained to find the source of his voice. “No. I’m not doing this. Whoever you are -- Whatever you are. If you’re even going to  _ pretend  _ to be -- I want some answers.”

“Sure, Kat, I’m taking you to the Palace of Death. The rest is … complicated.”

“I’ve got time for something complicated. Why don’t you show yourself, and explain it all to me?”

“I’d love to. I really would.”

_ God, so would I. _ “Why can’t you?”

“Because, Kat, while my armor may have held up in Valhalla, the inertia shield didn’t, and after it failed…

Katrina shuddered. The armor might hold, but the human inside wouldn’t. Once at Greenskin, Grond had smacked a suit of Peacekeeper armor before the shock absorption had set. The armor had tumbled ten meters, but only had a few scrapes, but the sergeant inside had been liquified. “I get the idea. But then--”

“Valhalla did what Vahalla does. Dead warriors rise, remember? But Aesgard was dying too, at that point, and instead of bringing me all the way back, I became part of my armor.”

“Then where’s your armor?”

“You’re inside it, Kat.”

“Bullshit,” Katrina said and paused for the echo. “Your armor was never this large.”

“Maybe. Maybe I got larger -- or you’re very small. In the underworld, scale tends to be relative, but inside my armor is one of the best ways to smuggle you and that celestial gun through the netherworld to the Palace of Death. Infernal and Celestial energies -- well, think matter and antimatter.

“Somehow you managed to find me,” Katrina said, not bothering to hide the suspicion in her voice.

“I have an affinity for death, Kat, and you killed a lot of people. It made you hard to miss.”

The bodies and blood filled the darkness her vision couldn’t pierce. She slumped back against the wall, and slid down. The hard metal of the Colt rested on her knees. “I couldn’t find another way. I wish-- I wish there’s been-- I tried--”

“Rasputin’s really cunning, but they’re better off now--”

“No, I mean yes, Rasputin is an ass, but I meant about Valhalla. And Rasputin. And Everything. I never wanted any of it to happen.”

“I never wanted you to have to make that choice, but you made the right one, Kat. You found a way out for everyone else, and you made me the hero I wanted to be.”

“You made you the hero--”

“Just--”

“What?”

For a moment, his voice hesitated. “Would you have said yes if I hadn’t been going to die fighting off the Invasion?”

Katrina laughed despite herself. “Of course! How can you even ask that?”

“Prerogative of the dead. Besides, sending me off to die  _ and _ turning me down would have been a pretty mean thing to do.”

“Shut up. Yes. I would have married you.”

“I miss you more than anything else about life. I wish we had more time. But I need to get you to the Palace of Death quickly. Even I can’t hide the Colt forever.”

Katrina took a breath, and forced herself to focus. “What’s at the Palace of Death?”

“Death chooses a representative -- someone close to you -- and speaks through them.”

“So I will get to see you again.”

“So optimistic, Kat. I’d say America’s rubbing off on you.”

“But I still -- why am I going to the Palace of Death?”

“Because you need to? I don’t know exactly why either. Just, you have to be careful. It’s easy to get lost there.”

“What do you mean?”

“I -- it’s hard to explain. This isn’t just death, or even the afterlives that we have. This is --- beyond that. The Palace of death is the nexus of all death. If it has an Alpha, it has an Omega and that Omega is the Palace of Death.”

“Even Thulkos?” Katrina asked. Drifter had mentioned finding a way to Thukos through things Earth and Thulkos had in common. Perhaps death was a way in. She tightened her grip on the pistol. Maybe Drifter had been wrong about the Colt killing Tyrannon.

“Everything. Few things are beyond death -- maybe conceptual things -- things that have existence without beginning or end. We’re almost there. It’s time for you to awaken. Be direct with Death. It doesn’t do subtle.”

“Awaken?”

“Just open your eyes, and tell Caliburn--”

Katrina realized her eyes were closed, and opened them. The stone at her back had a chill that seeped through her tactical armor. The Palace of Death was not a tall structure, but a basalt bunker that stretched plunged into the side of a great stone ridge. Opposite the entrance, a road stretched down a barren plain where obsidian spires pushed up from the ground, surrounded by angry red wisps. 

She could see it walking away -- A mansion or a cathedral, rooms heaped upon each other until individual floors were impossible. Hide cloaked pueblos rested on top of rows of doric columns and filigree balconies. The massive structure pranced down the road a pair of gigantic chicken legs, its scales glowed amber under the hazy red glow of an alien sun. 

The words drifted like a whisper, “Tell Caliburn he’s the archmage and he can make his own damn space.”

*** 

Katrina had prepared herself for Jason on the throne -- even looked forward to it -- Jason’s real form and not some shade of Baba Yagas. But the girl draped sideways crosswise over the angular throne was considerably shorter, her hair haphazardly spiked, her legs in striped leggings. Katrina had hunted for remnants of herself before the last time she’d been in Kiev -- a picture from a family album, maybe, or something from school. 

But with Papa dead and Mother … gone, another family had moved into the house, and shoved what few things remained from her family into the crevices of a leaky storage shed. She had picked through moldy boxes and found little worth saving -- certainly no picture of herself as a girl before the accident. The school had a small, indistinct photo that made up part of a class collage. That girl’s face had been pale with her hair pulled back in a braid, her jaw set, her eyes sullen.

The girl sprawled across the throne had those same sullen eyes, made more stark by black pools of eye shadow. Her hair was coarsely dyed purple, with dark roots that belied the natural brown. Her harsh read of her lipstick was glossy and thick.

Katrina had seen the girl’s expression before -- the mix of annoyance and boredom -- usually buried into the screen of a phone. The sight of her bewildered Katrina -- Jason had told her that death would have an emissary and appear as someone she was close to -- someone dead.

“Do you have a smoke?” The girl asked, looking at Katrina expectantly. “Don’t you speak Russian? A smoke. A cigarette.” 

“I don’t smoke,” Katrina said, “Wait---” she fumbled in her tactical vest and pulled out the crumpled pack she’d picked up in the church. Here.”

The girl picked through the pack. “They’re broken.” She fished out a bent cigarette and straightened it with her fingers until she held it in her lips and looked at Katrina expectantly.

“What?” Katrina asked, exasperated.

“What do you mean what? Where are the matches?”

“I--”

“Don’t smoke. God, you’re useless.”

“You’re supposed to be Death’s avatar.”

“So what? What kind of asshole brings cigarettes and no matches?” She smashed the cigarette against the throne. “Useless.”

“Stop, just stop. Give me a second.”

“Just go away, let me go back.”

“To what?” Katrina asked. She took out the Colt, hoping she could shoot it enough to get the barrel hot enough to light a cigarette. But when she pulled the trigger, nothing happened. 

“To nothing.”

“You’re alive now, right? That’s something,” Katrina said as she set the shellie alongside the carbine on the floor. She considered both weapons. The shellie was better for infiltration, but the carbine had more punch and charge for close up fighting.

“When you leave, I’ll go back to nothing. Does that sound like living to you?”

“No. It doesn’t. I’m sorry,” Katrina said as she grabbed the barrel and the stock of the carbine and snapped it apart.

“Fuck you,” she said and turned away with her head on her knees, her back to Katrina.

Katrina pulled the conduction coil from along the barrel and the ammo battery. “Look, I don’t understand how this works, but I died in that car crash in Kiev, and somehow you’re left from that--”

“Shut u--”

“You shut up and get over here. This coil’s going to get very hot, but not for very long. You can light a cigarette from it.”

The girl turned around and scrambled over. “Where? What coil? There’s too many wires.”

“There. Between those two prods.”

At the girls nod, Katrina wrapped the coil across both prods of the charge pack. The pack grew hot in her hand as the coil glowed like a stove. The girl leaned in, then back, blowing a long stream of smoke from her lips. Her trenchcoat billowed out as she pirouetted her way back to the throne. 

Katrina knew the carbine’s firing mechanism was shot, but checked anyway. Half her arsenal gone without as much as a thank you. Still, Katrina didn’t speak until the girl had lit a second cigarette with the end of the first. 

“J-- There was a man in armor. Big and green.”

“I remember. He looked like robot. He was with a bunch of people in costumes. He was the only one who could translate Russian. They said they were looking for you.” 

The bitterness in her voice surprised Katrina. “What happened?”

“I told them how to find you and before they left the robot guy told me how I’d come back to life and I was a great soldier and that I’d helped all these people and made the world a better place.”

“They all did. They were superheroes--”

“So what.”

“And the robot guy, his name was Jason and he--”

“Lied. It was all bullshit.”

Katrina sighed. Who had been saved in Pripyat? All she had brought was death. “I know. So many have died -- keep dying --”

“I bet you have. All Papa cared about was building a bigger gun. But that’s not the real bullshit. You’re not me. You’re just what moved in when I died and Papa stuck you in that Egg-thing.”

“What? I--”

“Stop being stupid. You don’t remember much before you died because you didn’t die. I did. Those are  _ my  _ memories that  _ I _ lived. You’re just taking up my space, living my life. No one came after  _ me _ . They came after you. I’m just the origin story, so fuck your bullshit and fuck you.”

“No,” Katrina said, and threw the broken carbine aside hard enough for the barrel to shatter against a column. “ _ Fuck you,  _ you sorry, ungrateful, shit _. _ You died because you ran off with your drunk boyfriend and got yourselves killed driving off the road,”

The girl’s face went from rage to shock. “What, Gregor’s dead?” 

“And before that, you wasted your life hanging out in clubs and drinking and smoking and whatever you could get your spoiled little hands on. Even if the egg had brought you back you’d have wasted that life just like you wanted the last one. I didn’t take your life, you gave it away.”

The girl covered her ears and screamed, tears running down her clenched eyes. Before Katrina could say anything more, the girl ran behind the throne. The chamber echoed with her sobs. Katrina sat on the steps, and rubbed her temples. The butcher of Pripyat could add a frightened, confused thirteen year old to her list. 

Katrina approached the huddled form in the shadow of the throne. “I’m sorry. I-I didn’t know. I didn’t ask to take your life -- I didn’t even know. I’m just here, and I’m doing the best that I can. If I’d have known--”

“You’d have what?” The girl asked, her face wet with tears.

“I-I don’t know. I can’t even remember and I before I came out of the Egg. I didn’t have a choice. But I walked with the Drifter and I saw -- I saw a future where you hadn’t left with Gregor, and you had a good life--”

“With Gregor?”

“Someone else, but you were happy.”

“You’re going to leave, and I’m going to die again.”

“I’ll stay as long as I can. Look, your cigarette’s out,” Katrina said and gripped the barrel of the shellie. “I can use the battery clip from here--”

“Don’t.”

“I’ve got the Colt.”

“The Colt won’t work where you’re going,” she said, and looked forlorn at the extinguished butt. She tossed it into the shadows and dragged her face across her sleeve and sniffed.

“How--How do you know that?”

“Because Death lets me know things when I need to.”

“Then you know where I need to go?”

“Here, all you have to do is look for it, and if there’s a route, you’ll find it.”

“Help me find it?” Katrina asked.

The girl shrugged. “You don’t need my help.”

“I do. I need to find Thukos or the universe will be destroyed,” Katrina said and paused to let it sink in. “Please, come with me. I’d like the company and you’re not-- I might not be you -- but things come back -- things from before and I don’t know how but I react because of things from your life, things I don’t understand. I think sometimes you’re more real than I am. And I don’t want to just forget before or forget you. It wouldn’t be fair.”

“Gregor really died?”

“I’m sorry. He might have survived, but the men who picked you up--”

“Those men -- they’re --”

“They went mad and killed each other.”

The girl seemed to brighten. “Good.”

“They had families too. It’s never good -- but they deserved it more than Gregor -- but --”

“But what?”

“He was what, thirty?”

“No, he was twenty-four. Mother said I couldn’t see him, but I snuck out,”

Katrina felt the ghost of a smile. “I remember sneaking out. Come walk with me and tell me more about Mother.”


	10. Home and Beyond

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Juliette Sri meets with Agents of the V'han Empire

Juliette wished her tea had not already gone cold, even if the mug was a paper cup with the Steelhead logo stamped on the side and the tea one of those dreadful bags that contained little but dust and shreds. Still, the fact there was any beverage in the chilly makeshift shed that served as a Steelhead observation post was a testament to Canadian hospitality. “Interesting. Part of the Gadroon terraforming strategy is to suppress natural formation of biomass in the soil with their genetically modified organisms which consume the carbon out of the biomass. I must give them credit for getting down to the heart of the matter.”

“But what is this?” Dr. Sejan asked, peering over his glasses at the chemical spectrograph displayed on the wall. Most would have seen the indian man as professional, calm, but Juliette could sense the anger within -- an anger that he mostly directed toward finding a solution to the Gadroon terraforming project. She could follow the anger to the fear that fed it -- a fear of failing, of losing to the Gadroon -- a fear of letting his fellows down. It was a heady mix of emotion almost as interesting as the soil analysis they examined.

“Well that,” Juliette Sri said as she gestured at the wall and paused as nothing happened, “That--” she gestured again. She frowned, then reached down for the mouse. 

“First you select -- click, drag --” Dr. Sejan said, his focus turning to a slight annoyance.

“And then press option-shift-...” Juliette said as she scanned the row of keys in front of her. The amusement she felt from Isabella Maronni did not help her concentration. Dr. Sejan had all but forgotten about Lieutenant Maronni from Project Mind Game and left her presumably engrossed with email. Presumably. In actuality, she monitored Juliette with a sloppiness that sometimes gave Juliette more about Maronni than Maronni learned about Juliette.

“Plus.” Dr. Sejan offered.

“Plus, yes, thank you,” Juliette said. Dr. Sejan’s annoyance dissolved as he examined the data, but Juliette still felt obligated to explain in a way that didn’t discuss advanced human-computer interactions. “I’m not familiar with this interface.” 

“Clearly. But, Dr--”

“Sri, Juliette Sri.”

“We haven’t made this much progress since Dr. Silverback spent a couple weeks last summer.” He gestured to the screen with the corner of his glasses at a series of dense squiggles “This section here appeared recently.”

“It appears to be a chelation layer. Fascinating. I had considered a chelation technique to reverse the process--”

“Hold on,” Dr. Sejan said, with a burst of hope. The Gadroon terraforming is reversible?”

“But of course, Doctor. That was hardly in any doubt -- at the very worst, molecular soil reconstruction --” she stopped, realizing her slip.

Is _molecular reconstruction_ a branch of science UNTIL has not bothered to share with the Steelhead Division, Dr. Sri?”

Juliette applied an ingratiating smile as she felt the weight of Dr. Sejan’s suspicion. Humans were so quick to distrust each other -- especially when they existed in different geopolitical boundaries. “Purely theoretical, Dr. Sejan, though I understand Harmon Labs has a prototype--”

“Has been applied to molar quantities of material. Doctor, might I remind you that the Gadroon have terraformed an entire mountain.” Dr. Sejan pointed to the window with its view of the terraced Gadroon beach head. 

“I’m aware, Dr. Sejan,” Juliette said as she expanded a section of the graph. “I’m more curious as to why they stopped. Oh, this ammonium layer is just a blob. I wish we could get greater resolution on the chemical spectrograph.”

“Perhaps they were stopped by the dioxin layers we’re putting around their formations,” Dr. Sejan said, pointing further down the graph.

Usually she kept her emotions steady, but Maronni’s monitoring bubbled her reactions to the surface. “Dioxin? But Dr. Sejan, that poison must kill the biomass even beyond the permafrost layers! Sure, you reduce the carbon with oxygen--”

“Exactly, and the toxins are just as effective on Gadroon microorganisms as our own,” Dr. Sejan said. “And if it would kill all the frogs, it might be worth soaking the entire mountain.” 

Juliette found his satisfaction with destroying an entire mountain biome to rid his planet of ‘frogs’ depressing. “Except their technology is closer to discovering how to destabilize the dioxins and increase radiological breakdown. An appropriate catalyst or molecular reconstruction is far beyond y--our capabilities but not the Gadroon’s. This is their third invasion, right?”

“Fourth -- I would guess the ‘77 invasion -- maybe even what happened in ‘84 -- was a little before your time.”

“My parents were in Paris about the time of the Gadroon invasion of 1984,” Juliette recited from her cover story. “They said it was a terrible time.”

“It was, though not the total war that ‘77 was. When I was a cadet, my commander said driving off the Gadroon in ‘77 was possibly the only decent thing Dr. Destroyer did. But ‘84 was bad in its own right, and even though they were beaten again, they tried again in ‘94, in Canada. Some think it was a trial run for the ‘08 attempt which set up this beach head. By the time we discovered them, we couldn’t just shove them out, they were too deeply dug in. Stubborn.”

“Or desperate.”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing,” Juliette said, sensing he was nowhere near ready for _that_ discussion. “Doctor Sejan, might I see the terraforming progress from 2008 on?”

“Do you think it could provide some insights into how to reverse the process?”

“Perhaps, but more importantly, it will tell us when they stopped.”

“Do I have to remind you,” Isabella Maronni said after Dr. Sejan left, “about UNTIL’s policy of scanning people without their permission?”

“Only if you think I have forgotten it, Lieutenant,” Juliette said. “Did I scan him?”

“You did something. Normally, you have this energy about you, but for a while, it was gone and you were, like a void.”

“That void is called ‘listening’. Though I hardly needed to do so. He was all but shouting.”

“He hides his anger well.”

“So you felt it too? Perhaps because you were monitoring me, you better heard his anger.” Juliette sighed. “My homeworld was occupied once too. We considered ourselves a peaceful people but the anger is understandable. Still, that anger changed us.”

“For the better?” Maronni asked, unable to conceal her own curiosity. Juliette had been tenaciously tight-lipped about her homeworld.

“My House, and others, did terrible things to rid ourselves of the invaders and their atrocities. The Dominesh lived for their gods. We convinced many of them their gods were dead.”

“They lost their will to fight, then?”

“They lost their reason for living,” Juliette said. “They killed themselves.”

“Sounds like they learned not to mess with you.”

 _So Terran,_ Juliette thought. “You don’t kill someone’s gods without killing your own. But my world isn’t the issue here. It is yours, and your biggest threat isn’t even the Gadroon, but -- “

“Tyrannon, I know. And yet you’re here.”

“The Gadroon could be valuable allies against Tyrannon.”

“Weren’t you listening to Dr. Sejan? Haven’t we given you access to our history? The Gadroon killed tens of thousands trying to take our planet and enslave us.”

“Of course I was -- you have had so many invaders -- the Qularr, the Sirians, the Gadroon -- “

“And Istvatha V’han -- the Emp--” Maronni’s voice dwindled. “You don’t think--”

“Empress is a pretty generic term, one coined by many a petty despot and not just Isvatha V’han.”

“Still, I should let Stargazer know.”

“That would be prudent,” Juliette said. She dared not tell her more, not yet. “But my point was that by the time the Mandaarians came in peace, you’d already been invaded twice, the fact you received them well speaks highly of your flexibility.”

Maronni jammed a finger toward the “None of those developed a years-long beach head near a Canadian defense post. That starts feeling a little too much like being conquered. You said you were occupied once, you must get that.”

“We were, but by the time we were, we were already part of a Confederation of planets who helped free us. Before that, our first contacts were mostly peaceful. Invasion was the exception, not the norm. Come to the window. I want to show you something.”

Maronni’s sigh indicated she had little patience for lessons. “You didn’t exactly come here in peace, either.”

“Silent observation, with the intent of not disturbing the local inhabitants, is not always a precursor to invasion,” Juliette said as she set up her multi-corder on the narrow sill. 

“According to PRIMUS, your ship -- before you destroyed it in their warehouse --”

“--to protect your future,” Juilette said, as the multi-corder whirred and the glass of the window changed from clear to a decidedly blue tint. The mountain exploded in cyan and crimson as the surrounding snowcaps became dull grey.

“What did you do?”

“Adjusted the window to filter to a spectrum more in line with Gadroon vision. Beautiful, isn’t it?” With a gesture, Juliette could zoom in some, focusing on the terraforming spires that erupted with clouds of orange and lime green. “I understand. You still hate them.”

“Your ship had weapons.”

“We’re peaceful explorers, not idiots,” Juliette said, but didn’t feel Maronni’s suspicious diminish.

“I don’t hate the Gadroon,” Maronni said.

“You know that my abilities make lies especially painful?” Juliette asked.

“Well, maybe not the way Dr. Sejan does and stop scanning me.”

“Stop shouting,” Juliette said, and stubbornly kept her psychic barriers in place until Maronni had calmed herself more.

“Sorry, its just -- UNTIL lost a lot of good people fighting off the Gadroon.”

“I’m sorry. It's hard losing anyone and occupation of your homeworld -- it provokes something -- something primal. You have to decide whether you want that primal response to define you. Every species does. But -- do you even know why they are invading?”

“Because they want our planet, obviously.”

“Why?”

Maronni flashed with annoyance. “Because they destroyed their planet -- we got that much from their captured databanks --”

Juliette shook her head. “No, that’s why they want _a_ planet. Why this one? Clearly they have no colony worlds, or they would have gone there. Surviving in space, even with advanced technology is difficult.”

“Maybe they think they have a chance now that they have a foothold on to our planet.”

“They don’t.”

“Damn right, they don’t.”

“Don’t you think they _know_ that? Or at least know they’re in for a fight at least as bad as the first invasion? They lost a considerable number of ships, ships -- without some sort of construction facility -- are difficult to replace, and for every nomadic spacefaring species --”

“Met a lot, have you?”

“Twenty seven, Lieutenant Maronni.”

Maronni’s surprise rang against Juliette’s senses like a bell. “Really?”

“Twenty seven spacefaring nomadic species, and for them, not having a homeworld -- not even colonies -- creates a lot of challenges. Gravity, environment, life support become paramount because maintaining a population in space is a huge challenge, especially when the reason you’re space nomads is because of a population decimating event like planetary destruction. And that’s not even including the basic fact that planetary invasions -- especially against an industrialized opponent who has space flight --”

“We don’t--”

“You have a great many heroes and you have Gateway, Moonbase Serenity and the installation on Mars. Yes, the Gadroon are technologically advanced, but you have some intersolar presence, super heroes, and the resources of a planet, even if you include your incomprehensible desire to poison your world with dioxins.”

Maronni glared. “We’re fighting to keep our _home._ ”

Juliette paused to let the brunt of Maronni’s anger pass. “So were _we_. At all costs sounds great until the bill comes due. I know. I’m sorry, but this is the wrong fight. Tyrannon will take this dimension from everyone.”

“And you think you can make the Gadroon Empress understand that as well -- you know, the records we got from previous invasions never mentioned an Empress, but a council of Admirals, and wait-- what was that?”

A light on the multi-corder flashed on and off as the window returned to its normal view. Juliette took it from the makeshift window sill and hooked it to her hip. “Oh, that’s just a notification--”

“No, for a moment, from you -- I sensed some sort of recognition from you --”

Juliette slammed her defenses in place, feeling foolish for letting her guard down. “I have to go.”

“Go? What do you mean go?”

“Do not worry. I modified the ADIS on Luna,” Juliette said, the world already dissolving into golden light.

“I’ll be back,” she said as the transporter took her away, hoping it wasn’t a lie.

***

The facility had no name, no number, no designation. Records of its construction -- even duty logs, equipment manifests -- had all been destroyed, including the work order to destroy it. To eternity, Juliette’s small collection was a small set of rough-hewn rooms under the basin of Mare Serenitatis. All to protect Earth’s future, she had said, wishing she hadn’t had to lie to them so much.

Juliette had hoped to explain the modifications to the prototype ADIS before she’d had to use it, but a summons had been issued -- one she had to obey.

“Computer, report.”

“There is a priority message from Home,” the Computer replied. Juliette had tried to make the voice natural, but without a psychic presence, the voice was mechanical and remote. Home had no name, no coordinates, no further explanation in the databanks. Only her multi-corder knew the truth, and it was keyed only to her.

“Play the message.”

A device made for collecting and projecting molecules could be adjusted to work with light rather easily. The ADIS flickered as the hologram took shape. The sight of Captain Bren -- standing tall in front of his own holographic projector -- in Confederation sea-green and gold, his ginger beard fuller than she’d last seen it over a year ago with a few more silver flecks -- filled Juliette with a mix of relief and concern, even as a hologram and lacking emotional presence.

“Commander Sri, you are to report to Wormhole 871 in the Beta Quadrant at Chrono 8721.12.31--”

“Pause. Computer, convert Chrono to Local.”

“Chrono will be reached in 1 hour, 18 minutes.”

Thank gods fortunate. Time for a shower, and tea -- but report? How? “Continue.”

“The _CFS_ _Iris_ shall pick you up and you will transport to the wormhole. You will transfer to the IVV _Indomitable_.”

Juliette felt a moment of panic. Would the V’hanian Imperial Cruiser stay in Confederation Space? Captain Bren had not said, but it would not be the first time the V’han Imperium did not reveal their plans -- or take Confederation prisoners. She took a deep breath, and reminded herself that this had been the plan. But what had Bren said? _Its easier to contemplate climbing the mountain than it is to be halfway up._

Still, she’d hoped to have gotten more time to work the Gadroon and talk to Lieutenant Mirinova. 

It did not take UNTIL long to attempt contact -- Millennium City via Gateway Station to Moonbase Serenity. She could only use the shower as an excuse for so long, but it gave her time to come up with what she needed to say.

“My apologies, Lieutenant Maronni. Please inform your Major that you had no choice in my departure.”

Even beyond any sensible range, and with video turned off, Maronni’s anger was clear, “Sri, you get your ass back down here---”

“One of my ships is coming to pick me up, Lieutenant Maronni.”

“Wait, what? Your ships? From the future?”

“Something like that, but just remember, we figured out that my present isn’t exactly your future--”

“Are you leaving? What--”

“There’s no time. They do not have harmful intent. They’ll come, transport me from this facility, and go.. There will be only one ship, designation CFS _Iris._ Please do not fire upon them.”

“You’ve been trying to get home for a while--this is sudden, but--”

“Thank you. I should be back.”

“Wait, what? Why?”

“Because you’re in trouble, and I think I can help, but my schedule is uncertain. I would appreciate it if you continued to supply power to this facility while I am gone. Oh and...good luck Just in case.” Juliette checked herself in the mirror. The uniform was made from local fabrics and had never set quite right.

At the appointed time, her mult-corder chirped. “Iris to Commander Sri.”

“This is Sri. Iris, it has been entirely too long.”

“We were most pleased to learn you were alive. We are still go for the operation. The ship, for the moment, is not monitored by the V’han Imperium. Engineers will beam to your facility and make the necessary modifications. Are you ready for transport?”

“And how! I mean -- ready for transport.”

***

Recirculated air never tasted so good. Juliette immediately sensed thirty four other Zaed on the ship and joined her presence to their collective as a happy thirty-fifth. The sensation of sharing was so wonderful she could only complete her salute to the security officer before she almost fainted on the transporter pad. _Home_.

The moment of vertigo had landed her in the infirmary. She dwelled on the sensation of being connected to the Zaed as she was examined. The doctor’s eyes were metallic and the veins around the sockets a blackened spider’s web -- a cybernetic nano-infection too deeply ingrained to be removed. She felt a tinge of regret at the thought, and her fellows comforted her with a reminder of how a hallmark of a civilization is how it survived its mistakes. 

Being on Terra had taken its toll -- viral infections, not yet symptomatic, had been removed with transport filters, but the damage from breathing air mixed benzine and a soup of micro toxins needed to be regenerated. Nothing immediate, the doctor assured her, just the sooner repaired the less chance it would shorten her life expectancy. 

A long life was not something she was thinking about, but more about not trying the legendary patience of Captain Bren. He was a master of expression, his face a placid mask that hid the storm of concern and worry in his mind as he consulted with the doctor outside her hearing. Juliette had her own mask, honed by the Logic Masters of Orr and the intrigues of Zaed. His mask, along with the chance to work with an accomplished non-Zaed negotiator, is why Juliette has applied to serve on the _Iris_. Her mask is why he accepted. He wore that mask as he approached her, giving a dismissive wave to her attempt to get up.

“Captain, I’m so sorry about P’tal, Zorref, Sel-chan and Emerson.” Even as she spoke the words, she shared with her fellow Zaed that terrible moment -- her shaking hand holding the phase-pistol to disintegrate them, only to collapse from her own wounds before completing the task leaving P’tal to be taken by PRIMUS. 

“Their families can grieve and no longer wonder. Commander, the medical scans have shown--”

“Their dimension has changed me. I have -- abilities.” She relaxed slightly to let the power flow, just enough to sheathe her hair in a hazy green energy, and was amazed that Captain Bren’s mask did not break.

“I wish we could discuss that further, but before we left, the V’han were starting their D-gate. If you cross into their dimension and discover you have abilities, we’ll never get you back.”

“Captain, I believe I can suppress my abilities, as I had before, Sir, but if they scan me...”

“Do not focus on that. Focus on the plan instead. We have not been idle in your absence, Commander, and less said the better. How are negotiations with the Gadroon?”

“I fear I have failed you, Captain. The negotiations proceed slower than I expected. So many of them love the Empress already. I have failed.”

“The Gadroon can only fail themselves, and they will not be the first to fail at this hurdle. Your message back to Zaed is the reason the V’han wish to speak to you. Tyrannon seems to be a name they recognize. We have much to go over, and we cannot keep you on the _Iris_ long.”

“Her injuries do require attending,” the doctor said with a conspiratorial nod to the scanner. “Measles, Tuberculosis, not even mentioning the venereal diseases--”

“Venereal diseases! What? She glared at the scanner. “It says no such--oh--yes, I see. I have diseases. All of them.” Curing the diseases would take time.”

Captain Bren sighed. “Make sure her scans match your prognosis, and don’t lay it on too thick Doctor. Lingering in this dimension will only make the V’han suspicious, but I’d rather any records tampering happened as far away from V’han scanners as possible. But by treaty with this Earth, they’re not allowed in this dimension.”

“They’ve already broken that treaty a couple times, Sir.”

“As I said, much to talk about. Navigation, how long until the wormhole closes?”

His badge hummed. “The wormhole will be closing in sixteen minutes. Coms has picked up messages from an installation on the moon -- general goodwill, peace --”

“Feel free to reciprocate in kind and assure them we mean no hostile intent, and will be leaving shortly. Thank them for watching over our Commander Sri for us.”

“Sir, they have energized some of their weapons and we are detecting some sort of low energy scan.”

Commander Bren looked pointedly to Juliette Sri, “Commander? Is there some sort of disagreement with these moon people we need to know about?”

“No sir, though my most valuable liaison has gone -- missing, and the current one is suspicious.”

“Missing?”

“Not my doing Sir. But I cannot find her on the planet.”

“Hence the suspicion.”

“Yes, but they most likely activated a point defense system, in case we attack, Captain,” Juliette said.

Captain Bren brushed at his beard. “Prudent when facing an unknown ship. Shields up, then. Warm up our point defenses,” Commander Bren said, “But only fire on my order. I do not need to explain to our Imperial ‘guests’ why the planet we’re supposed to be waving a carrot at decided to scratch the paint. Commander, get yourself cleaned up and meet me in my Ready Room for tea. We have much to go over.”

***

Only a small tremor that ripped across Juliette’s tea gave any indication of the shift through the wormhole. Juliette permitted herself a breath. The last trip had been nowhere so smooth.” She had barely time to go over the highlights from her crash landing -- the capture by PRIMUS and her psychic infection in retaliation -- shades of old conflicts that were resolved. Infiltrating their base, deleting their data, destroying the remnants of her ship, her comrades, all in the name of ‘protecting the future’, but more to protect discovering the V’hanian connection. A connection that would make her a more hated enemy than the Gadroon. It was a quandary her missing liaison Katrina Mirinova might understand, and hopefully plead her case before the entity Bach told anyone.

So much to say, but at least Captain Bren had given her time to prepare for meeting yet more V’hanian agents rather than grilling her about the details of her time on Earth 1842. It was his style she was trying to emulate with the Gadroon, but she couldn’t help feeling she was failing.

“I expect a more formal report when you return, but for now, what you have shared with your fellow Zaed will have to do,” Captain Bren said. 

“When I return,” Juiette affirmed, letting the unsaid possibility that she would be kept, and even V’hanian interrogators could not recover what she didn’t know. 

“What can you tell me of these abilities of yours?” Bren asked, pouring hot tea into a shallow cup.

“I suspect it is a side-effect of a drug their planetary defenders used to subdue my natural abilities. The facility I was in held many secrets, and they had enough people with abilities in their staff to sense my abilities and be concerned. But the drug was meant for humans, and so it did not work well, and I could--can lift much more than I could before, and shield myself without using a portable shield generator.”

“I’m expecting a full battery of tests when you return. Any--side effects?”

“Side effects?”

“From what I recall of Zaed history, the more powerful a Zaed was the more--they had troubles relating to reality.”

“You speak of my Aunt Minerva.”

“A hero of the Dominesh occupation, if I recall.”

“You recall correctly, Captain. She was possibly the most powerful telepath of our kind. The power drove her mad.” She shuddered. “Sir, Might I be on the bridge when we exit the wormhole?” She left the last of her question unsaid. _It might be my last view of home._

“Of course.”

The viewport changed silver whips cutting through blackness to a different space entirely, only the closest stars shining hard enough to be seen through the corona of the Ja-Boran wormhole. The planet nearby gleamed an azure and pearl sphere, made brilliant by the star it orbited. A perfect sky, save for the stacked length V’hanian war cruiser, and its gateway, the inner rings spinning wildly. Dozens of support ships, all with their own armaments, flew in close formation with the cruiser, matched by half again that number of Confederacy cruisers -- smaller than the V’hanian dreadnaughts, but a daunting presence, nonetheless.

The cruiser would have had to lower its shields to transport Juliette over, but the V’han had chosen to receive her by shuttle, instead. Sephan, one of the thirty-four Zaed, flew the shuttle. The tender anguish he felt at the thought of her leaving was palpable, and contributed to her misery as the rest of the Zaed fell out of range. Soon there was only tender Sephan, his emotional comfort matched by his superlative piloting through the energy shields into the bay where a contingent of armored guards -- bull faced with slate-grey skin stood at attention. 

_They are heavily armed. You should at least have a phase pistol_ , Sephan thought to her as he negotiated a landing.

 _It would do little good, and only increase tensions,_ Juliette thought. Besides, she had other weapons that more than evened the odds. Hardly enough to defeat a dimensional empire, but perhaps enough to engineer an escape, if needed. But if she needed _powers_ , then everything was lost. She tried not to think about how Captain Bren had any scans handled, but it was best not to dwell on it, in case V’han psychics decided to probe her.

She adjusted her dress uniform and left the shuttle as a warrior-scholar of Zaed, her face placid as she regarded the contingent of guards, resolved to not look back at the departing shuttle. She ignored the sad, painful pull of Sephan’s departure.

The guards remained at attention as a deep rumble shivered through the interlocked deck plates. Juliette looked back through the shield that covered the shuttle entrance. The stars traced across the view, aligning the ship to the gateway. She recognized the _Iris_ disk and nacelles among the fleet as the _Indomitable_ swung about, then dwindled until the entire sky flashed and Juliette felt a sharp, electric sensation. Her next view of stars showed a foreign galaxy, but she knew she had travelled much, much farther.

All in all, a remarkable crossing. Dimensional crossings by Confederation ships required considerably more maneuvering and naturally occurring wormholes. Oh, the advancements they could achieve with the Imperium-- had they been allies. But the Empress of a Billion Dimensions had no allies, only subjects.

In presumably their home territory, the D-soldiers took on a slightly more relaxed stance. After all, they had the weapons, while she remained unarmed. This made them more approachable, if cautiously so.

“Is this your home dimension?” Juliette asked one. “You are the ranking officer, are you not? Or do you not have authority to speak to me??”

The bovine, who stood a good thirty or so centimeters taller, flared his nostrils with an annoyed curiosity. “It is not our home dimension.” 

“Are you allowed to tell me where we are?”

He shook his head. “What makes you think I am the ranking officer?” 

Juliette pointed to the markings on his epaulette. “Your shoulder markings are unique amongst your group, and are the most ornate. Most species add markings or insignia as rank increases. My dimension is home to close to two hundred known species. We have found we hold certain things in common.”

“You are correct, but I am surprised you cannot identify Imperial ranks,” he said, though he didn’t project any surprise, but more suspicious curiosity. “I was told you were a scout for the Imperium.”

“I am a scout for Earth 1842 on behalf of the Houses of Zaed. You are the first D-soldiers I have met.”

Despite their lack of projection, the glances between the soldiers belied their awareness of Earth 1842. Had these soldiers been part of the one of the invasions? 

She corrected herself. Liberations. Conquerors invaded; the Imperium liberated.

Before she could ask, she felt the rumble in the deck plating abate the officer was talking into a communicator at his wrist. After a brief conversation, the officer indicated a door at the opposite end of the shuttle bay. Juliette followed without a word.

The door opened to lift -- which shifted mostly away from the artificial gravity. When the door opened, Juliette found herself on an observation deck formed from a thin strip of bronze segments that formed a walkway which extended over the surface of the ship for nearly a hundred meters, encased in translucent fields that made it seem open to space. The field shimmered where it polarized the light from a nearby star, which glared on a ruddy planet below. 

Two figures contemplated the planet as they stood in the center of the walkway. One was of the first species, slate grey and bovine, while the other was more humanoid, with black skin and close cropped blue hair. His robes were white; he carried the bearing of a scholar. The bovine was flanked by two guards, bulls in scarlet armor. She would not ask about their insignias, but like those before, she recognized the Red Lion Elite V’hanian Legion. Their axes crackled through the air as they moved.

“You,” the bovine said, gesturing for her to come forward, “You are Juliette of House Sri, a species from Dimension 8300 of some psychic ability. Be aware that you stand in the presence of Proxculus Maxim, Viceroy of this Dimension, Dimension 782.”

“I am honored to be in your presence, but I do not know why I am here.”

“We wish to hear more of your plan to conquer Earth 1842.”

Juliette noted the term we with a careful nod. “We do not have to conquer what will be freely given. A great dimensional power seeks to devour their dimension, and they are unable to stop it.”

“It is not our concern,” he said. “We have a plan, and that plan is being followed.”

“And _our plan_ , Proxculus, had a marginally greater chance of success than the previous -- attempts at liberation. Which is to say, our plan would likely fail, even if Tyrannon not chosen Dimension 1842 as his next target,” Juliette said. While she did not sense anything from Proxculus, something in his gaze coincided with the burst of recognition she felt from the blue man.

“Our previous liberations? What would you know of our previous liberations?”

“I have spent over a year on Earth 1842. I have had access to their public libraries, their underground networks, and several months to examine UNTIL’s databases. I know you attempted three liberations. All have failed, if only because they call them ‘invasions’.”

“I see. You will deliver UNTIL’s database to us.”

Juliette felt a glimmer of ambition from the Proxculus. “It would not be wise to do so, and would hamper our plans.”

“ _Your_ plans. It is not wise to refuse us.”

“Refuse _you._ If I attempted such I would be found out, and you would gain little you do not already know. However, If it is truly the will of the Empress, then let it come from her House to mine. She is first among our Houses. I will obey and all of our plans will be undone.”

“You are here at the pleasure of the Empress.”

“You are here, Proxculus, because you and I are expendable. If this was a trap, I am but a small piece of a galactic confederacy, and you are but one of almost a billion dimensional viceroys.”

“ _almost_ a billion?” 

“I have not seen your knowledge stacks, and the only library I have access to says that the V’han Imperium is slightly over five hundred million dimensions. So, if I and my plan was nothing but the most catastrophic of traps, would the Empress even know your name or your dimension or would one of her aids have to remind her?” Juliette reminded herself not to speak in anger, but in the cold vacuum of logic delivered from a porcelain mask. 

“This dimension is more important than you know,” Proxculous said.

“Be that as it may, you and I are not. At least not yet. Carry my message without improvisation, and you will bring honor and glory to the Imperium and your name _will_ be well recalled by the Empress.”

A glint in Proxculous’ eye told her she had touched an ambitious nerve, and she pressed. “I have told you nothing that I would not want you to relay to the Empress, so I pray you do so in haste. I propose to have Earth 1842 willingly join the Imperium as grateful citizens, while our current plan involves liberation by force.”

“You would have the Empress attack Tyrannon.”

“I would have us fight to defend her adoring subjects. Carry my message to your leaders, see if they are not interested. At the very least, Earth 1842 will almost assuredly invite us in.”

“We do not need their invitation. We are already there.”

“Of course, with the Gadroon Fleet.”

“Is _that_ in the UNTIL library?”

“No, but they will figure it out soon. They have broken Gadroon codes and should be advised to change their codes.”

The Proxculus gave a shallow nod. “Tell me more of your plan.”

“I have told you what I can. I have objectives, and goals, but without more information, I cannot provide the execution. We Zaed value honesty and compassion, and for that we are considered some of the best negotiators in our galaxy. However, to be effective I need knowledge. Grant me access to the Imperial stacks regarding Earth 1842’s dimension, and I will be able to give a plan.”

“I will not do so.”

“I do not expect you to. I am asking the Empress to grant this. Pass along this request, or pass along that I have asked and you have denied me. Perhaps she will see the wisdom of your decision. Or perhaps --”

“Perhaps what?”

“Perhaps tell her of the objectives, and see how the Empress Imperial receives them. If she is favorable, then you can do as you wish with my request, but if the Empress wishes to turn objective to action--”

“Enough. Do not seek to council me,” The Proxculus said with a dismissive wave. “Speaker, it is time this silly Zaed learned of the planet we orbit.”

The blue-skinned man bowed low to the Proxculus and Juliette. “Gaze you upon the planet Rukosa, the home of the Treachery of Ka-Tro, also known as Earth 782.”

Juliette felt other words as she listened. While the Proxculus did not project much, the Speaker was quite clear. 

_Rukosa is my home, a beautiful, thriving world over a century ago, even as Istvatha V’han cruelly conquered most of our dimension, Rukosa resisted and fought to be free. Then a miracle whose secret has been lost to the ages gave the millions who lived there powers that rivaled the gods._

“The Empress liberated the dimension from the deprivations of Rukosa -- a despotic planet of billions who at first pirated the stars with their advanced technology and were barely held in check by the Imperium. Then, through some cosmic accident, were imbued with powers that rivaled the gods, and with their powers, subjugated the entire dimension.

“In order to save the dimension, The Empress Imperial sent her trusted General Ka-Tro to liberate those oppressed by the Rukosans. But he was seduced by their power and betrayed the Empress. His forces joined the Rukosans and they threatened not only Earth 782, but the dimensions that bored upon it. Billions lost their lives fighting to protect the liberated Imperium from Ka-Tro and the Rukosans.”

_When he saw how easily the Rukosans had defeated the Empress’s forces in Earth 782 he joined with them to lead them and help free other dimensions. They made progress, but what is one dimension against a billion, even with a general as Ka-Tro?_

“Eventually the Empress prevailed, and one by one, those dimensions subjugated by the Rukosans were liberated once more. We wept at the cost, but in order to free those subjected to Rukosan tyranny, the price was worth it. Ka-Tro sued for peace, but the meeting was a trap.”

_The meeting was a trap, but it was the Empress who betrayed the truce. She captured Ka-Tro and the Rukosan leaders._

“The Empress exposed the trap and in her infinite wisdom, put all to death. The Rukosan Empire was broken and finally defeated on their homeworld. Not a single one of those with powers surrendered and fought to the death.”

_Those with powers were slaughtered. We pitiful few were left behind to show the multiverse the extent of Imperial mercy._

Juliette fought to keep her placid expression as she looked closer at the planetoid and could see the signs -- the blight of atomics, mass drivers, the seas of inert mud produced by toxins that destroyed life to the cellular level. Near total destruction of a living world, no longer a habitat, but a message. 

“Now do you understand, Zaed?” The Proxculus asked.

Juliette nodded.

“Despite our best efforts,” The Proxculus said, “The Ruskosans still rebel and try to subjugate their neighbors. How fortunate we have one of the Zaed, who can sense what is in the hearts of beings. Tell me, Zaed, is the Speaker loyal?”

She dared not speak telepathically with the Speaker, as his reaction might give her away, but still, his terror was clear as she regarded him. He thought of his compatriots in the resistance and thought how he should not think of them. She guided his thoughts to his family and friends, and how they would suffer at the Proxculus’ men.”

“It is true, Proxculus, I can see the Speaker’s heart and see where his loyalty lies.”

The Speaker’s thoughts raced to the disruption chip in his head and the series of exercises to activate it, but as the final activation sequence approached, he hesitated, his thoughts clouded by fear of what came after.

“And?” The Proxculus asked.

 _So, it is a test_ , Juliette thought. “The Speaker hates the Empress and hates you. He conspires with others against you and the Empress.”

Juliette helped him think about his family and what would happen to them if he were captured alive, and eased him through the final activation, soothing his fear. His head erupted with golden traces of light that flowed over his skin like a river, dissolving all they touched. Those guards that had seized him lost their hands -- one lost his arm up to the elbow, as the speaker dissolved into dust.

Juliette kept her expression placid. “You should have asked me in private. But there is your proof. Now, take me back to my own, and deliver my message.”


	11. Thulkos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katrina finds a path to Thulkos and tries to get her bearings.

Mother was an artist. She sculpted mostly -- some painting, but a painting, a painting she could walk away from. Papa had to drag her away from a sculpture. Sometimes she’d be caring and she would look at me like she didn’t remember me, or Papa, or anyone. And all those museums we went to with mother and different groups of her artists ‘friends’? Papa thought she was sleeping with them, and at least twice cut his trips to Moscow short to catch her with a boyfriend -- or a girlfriend -- but all he caught was Mother’s wrath. Still, when Papa wasn’t home, Mother’s friends stayed until all hours. They were mostly quiet, except for that one man who came up to my room and gave me some brandy from his flask, but Nanna Klavdyia caught him, and when she told Mother, I never saw him in the house again. I think Papa had him poisoned, since the last time I ever saw him was on the street by Club Echo. His face was covered in tumors, begging for spare change or food.

What, you don’t remember Nanna Klavdyia? I don’t remember her much either. She wasn’t our real grandmother. But it made her and Mother happy to call her that, so we -- I did. She was old and fat and smelled like burned bread. Her teeth were crooked, so she didn’t smile much. But she gave me cigarettes, so I didn’t have to steal any of Mother’s, or get them from her friends.

She always went to church, though. With Papa and I when he was in Moscow, or just me when he wasn’t. She was different when she went to church, and wore the same blue head scarf. You must remember that. Even when she was furious at Papa she’d be nice to everyone at church. But when she got home --

It’s not like Mother and Papa fought all the time, just when Papa was away too much or if Mother let me go out too late, or get lost in one of her sculptures. Papa had Moscow, Mother had her art and her friends, which left boring old Nana. What are you looking at?

“Doors,” Katrina said. “Thousands of them.”

“Doors, doors, doors. Couldn’t you have picked something interesting? There could have been big golden gates, winged seraphim, or dragons, but no, you had to picture a bunch of dumb old doors. Bor-ring.”

“I didn’t expect to be here long, and I’m more concerned about where I’m getting to.”

“Time has no meaning here, and you’re going to the same place everyone does. You could have at least imagined an interesting way to get there.”

“I’m going through the world of the dead to get to another dimension of the living. Aren’t I doing it in reverse?”

The girl shrugged. “You’re just taking the long way around.” 

Katrina had followed nudges of intuition. The girl, who channeled Death, had said the direction didn’t matter, just the intent. Like all the other hallways the doors in this one were uniform, slate grey wood bound in mouldering vines and roots. Even Katrina found it boring. “I don’t understand. Why  _ are  _ there so many copies of the same door?”

The girl pointed at a door. “Murdered souls go here.” She paused at another. “These are people who died honorably -- whatever that is. This door -- that one’s for people who die in accidents. This one is the death of time. There must have been a time when each of those deaths had separate spiritual caretakers. Now they are the same. Tyrannon. In Thulkos, Tyrannon god of every death.”

“So there were gods before Tyrannon.”

“Thulkos is a mystical realm,” the girl said. “There were probably many, many gods.”

“If I go through this door--”

“If the door allows you through, the caretaker will know.”

“If? No kicking in these doors, huh?”

The girl shook her head. Only deaths you know are open to you. You’ve killed many, but while the death of soldiers,” The girl indicated a door like all the others, “might open to you, the caretaker is the same.”

“Tyrannon. I’d rather not be known by him, thank you.”

“Then,” the girl said with a wistful look to the unlit cigarette in her hand, “You need to find a death you know that Tyrannon does not claim. Oh look, the death of usurpers. Pity Tyrannon has claimed that -- you’d get in no problem.”

“Taking your place wasn’t my choice, and I’m -- hey, what about that one?”

The door was a pale slab sunk into the obsidian wall, free of wood, roots, or vines. The smooth ivory surface of the door was disturbed only by a tarnished bronze latch. Katrina slid aside as the girl rested her fingers on the latch.

“Merciful Death. The end of pain, fear and suffering. The release of the tortured.” She reached up, her fingers cool against Katrina’s forehead, and for a moment she saw the children of Pripyat. 

The girl’s bored expression turned to a look of surprise. “This door is actually open to you.”

“And Tyrannon isn’t the caretaker?”

“Perhaps it does not understand mercy,” the girl said as she touched the door again. “If there is a caretaker spirit beyond, it is a very weak one.” She stepped back from the door with a diffident girl’s shrug, but her shoulders were locked and her hands clenched tight.

Katrina grasped the latch, “When I step through, you--I’m so sorry.” She looked back at the girl who glared with a tight frown. The cigarette in her hand shook.

“Just go already. We share nothing but a car wreck.”

Katrina couldn’t find words, but hoped, as she tugged the latch upward and the door yawned inward, that the girl’s return to death was quick.

***

Katrina had learned from walking with Drifter that it was important to find commonalities when moving between worlds, or one could be overwhelmed by the unfamiliarity of it all, trapped in the knowledge that in this place there was no fit, there was no niche, and you were the ultimate outsider, without purpose or mooring in reality. 

The door she had opened had become thin and sparsely slatted, the knob in her hand gleamed silvery. Behind her, robes hung from a horizontal pole that crossed what she would have called a closet. On the floor were pairs of what she guessed to be shoes that slipped on and off with no fastener, and implied a human-like foot, but smaller. She panned the room and found two half-human sized beds that filled most of the floor pace. Each bed was covered with green-grey covers in multiple layers that cocooned two round figures. Each headboard had a small lamp, with the guttering remnants of a candle. The candle’s burn brought a honeyed, flower smell to the room, but failed to entirely blot out a growing smell of decay. Not that the figures smelled of rot, but held the in-between scent of a body no longer living. Not exactly like humanity, but close enough. Metallic and dry.

Down the hallway opposite the closet she heard repetitive, lilting whispers in no language she knew. She eased the shellie from its holster, and pulled back the covers on one of the beds. The alien was swaddled in a simple shift. Creamy blue arms, lay flat on each side. The lack of motion or breathing hinted further that it was dead -- a recent death by her conventional reckoning -- without trauma, their faces serene on an equally blue face.Three sets of ridges that ran from its face to the back of its head. The placement of the covering indicated some reverence and preparation; Katrina slid the covers back to preserve that care. 

She padded down the hallway, toward the whispers to an amber-lit room, with a figure in saffron robes crouched in supplication on the floor. The walls of the room were lined with hanging shelves where crystals and glass vials caught the lights that dangled from the ceiling. Katrina flipped the faceplate of her helmet down with a loud click; the whispers stopped as the creature stood and clambered on two feet. It was taller than those in the beds -- taller than her and extremely slender. Its skin was a darker blue than the smaller ones, and the three ridges on its face were more pronounced. 

It said something in a breathy, melodious voice, but the words trailed off as its gaze went to the shellie and the colt on her hip. Katrina slowly held her hands up, leaving the pistols holstered.

It repeated its words, and Katrina responded with a shrug. After a moment, the creature cautiously shuffled to a table, its gaze riveted on Katrina and reached out to touch an oblong crystal set in a brass base. Katrina counted five fingers, longer than hers and stubby at the ends, and an extra knuckle. The creature spoke again, and this time familiar words could be heard from the crystal. 

“If you are the spirit of death, I would ask that you would do the kindness of taking my children before taking me. They should suffer no more.”

“I am not--” Katrina began, and paused until she was sure that the translation worked both ways. “I am not, but your children do not suffer. They are -- gone. And that’s about all I know. Is this Thulkos?”

“If you are not Death, then, please, leave us in peace. May Kanash take them in peace and the Conqueror take me in their stead. I deserve far worse, for breaking my parent’s bond.”

Katrina paced the room, wary of its occupant, taking in the familiar. Tables and chairs were identifiable. She found a window and parted the drapes. Outside a narrow path extended to a wider road. A vehicle rumbled down the street on wheels, lights along its oblong shape, illuminating the path ahead. Shivering lights at the ends of posts illuminated the geodesic shapes of other buildings. A living complex perhaps? She anchored herself in the familiar while noting the differences. “Who is Kanash?”

“The Painless Sleep, The End of Suffering, Succor through the End --”

“Got it. Not Tyran-”

“Please!” the creature said, reaching out. Katrina noticed two of the fingers on its other hand ended at the first knuckle. “We do not speak the name.”

Katrina nodded, then remembered nods might not even mean agreement here. “Of course. When does the Proctor of Tribute come?”

“Within the gnet.”

“My world doesn’t have gnets,” Katrina said. Oh, how the Exploratory Corps would have a field day with this -- a dimension completely dissimilar to Earth. Even establishing the basic idea of how to measure time could be a long-term study unto itself. Katrina only knew the very basics of such protocols -- enough to stay out of the way of the scientists who did. But this wasn’t a mission of exploration of discovery in the normal sense. This was to scout, and somehow find a way back. 

“Soon.”

“How soon? Do you eat meals?”

“We eat four meals a day. A long meal can take a Gnet. But I shall be dead before the Proctor arrives.” The creature indicated a cordial on the opposite end of the table. “I too shall sleep, and you should leave before he comes.”

Katrina considered the cordial and what kind of poison it contained. If the authorities came to a house of corpses, she could hide her trail. But a living witness and a guide…

“What is your name?” Katrina asked.

“Ala`ash, Please, I must complete the ritual and join my children.”

_ T _ he vision of the two small corpses in the bedroom down the hall made her decision and she stepped away from the table. “If you’re still alive when the Proctor comes, don’t tell them of me.”

Katrina completed a circuit of the domicile, disappointed Ala`ash didn’t have one of those vehicles she’d seen pass before. Inside the house, there was a separate cubicle that seemed to be for dining. Three chairs around a table. In the center of the table was a bowl of round, orange, plum-like fruit that smelled candied and acrid at the same time. She took one -- the soft flesh gave under her thumb. A vegetable? A fruit? She pocketed it to try later. At least the block of knives next to the bowl was familiar and she chose the one with the heaviest blade.

Another door led outside to an alleyway. The windows to an adjacent building were dark, lifeless; Katrina avoided them anyway, and backed away from the street where the alley opened up to a common space of manicured scrub. The air was cool and filled with unfamiliar scents -- flowering plants, and nocturnal animals. Even the dirt along the shadowed path smelled oily and spicy as she held a handful up to her nose. There were sounds -- the soft putter of motors and ambient chips and whistles -- alien, but familiar in their presence. Katrina had imagined Thulkos more of the gullet of a living dimension. She had not expected creatures to live there in ordered, neatly arranged buildings.

Katrina studied the sky, training her binoculars on a distant light. Some sort of craft, a chariot shape held aloft by glowing capsules. Further out, the interstellar haze showed not starry spheres, but a crisscrossing of slender, golden threads. She scanned the sky until the horizon intersected with a golden arc occupying a finger width of the sky starting bright and buttery in the east and slowly dimming to the west. 

Katrina wished for a map first, then an atlas, then a map of the solar system -- something to make sense of it all. But there was no map. Not yet. As she returned to the alleyway, a vehicle -- stouter than the one before and with reinforced panels -- stopped on the street in front of the domicile, glittering with flashing lights.

The markings on the flat sides and front of the vehicle were bold and well-lit. The pair that lumbered out were shorter than Ala`ash, but heavier set. They hefted truncheons in their gloved hands. Their clothing -- leggings and coats instead of robes -- had similar markings as the vehicle. While they didn’t appear to have body armor, they wore plated helmets heavy enough to imply that their heads could be vulnerable. But it was risky to read too much into the armor; even more so to read into their demeanor as they casually split up -- one to the front entrance and one to the shadowed side door where Katrina watched. But even then, the one at the side door made no effort to search the area -- a sloppy mistake in any dimension. From the shadows, Katrina could wait until he was called inside to look at the bodies, and slip away. But instead of a call for the other, Katrina heard two voices within -- one an alarmed tenor, interrelated with the lighter trill of Ala`ash. If he was taken alive, he was a witness.

Nothing on the Proctor’s body looked like a camera, but she couldn’t be sure. She rushed from the shadows and locked him in a chokehold from behind, stabbing the kitchen knife over and over into the center of his back until the blade snapped. Katrina gave up on using pressure on an artery to knock him out and scissored her arm until his neck collapsed under her arm. The Proctor’s truncheon clattered against the walkway louder than she wished and she shoved the corpse face first against the wall and slipped into the doorway. 

The other proctor’s rush stopped just short of the kitchen. Whatever he had been expecting from the sound he had heard, it wasn’t an UNTIL agent in tactical armor, bloody from the gore of his partner. He recovered, but far too late, and even as the baton in his hand crackled with blue-white energy, barking out orders, Katrina already had the shellie aimed and ready. The scarlet blast punched through his faceplate and exploded out the back of his head, the far wall splattered with blue-green ichor. The Proctor collapsed, twitching and then stopped. 

In the great room, the Ala`ash sat on the floor, hunched forward and babbling. The shelves on the wall had been torn down, the tables upended. She wondered if the Proctor had trashed the place after he found the children dead, or simply as a matter of procedure. Katrina stepped gingerly among the crystals until she found one that looked like the translation crystal and thrust it toward Ala`ash. He twisted to the side to reveal his wrists bound with metal bands covered in pulsing red runes.

“How do I undo them?” Katrina asked.

“I don’t know! I think-- maybe the baton. Yes, the baton--”

Katrina took the truncheon from the corpse. Along the grip was a cluster of runes. She tested the weight in her hand. “What now?”

“I think you touch it to the binders and press the rune.”

She pressed the tip of the baton against the bands and pressed the first rune. The blue-white crackle of power returned. Ala`ash screamed and thrashed until Katrina jerked the baton away.

“Sorry! Sorry!”

Ala`ash whimpered, tearing and drooling as Katrina pulled him back to a sitting position. After a moment he could manage speech. “Please, just leave me.”

“Just hold on a second,” Katrina snapped, and pointed the truncheon toward the table. She pressed the second rune. The truncheon bucked and the table was encased in golden cords. “Well, that’s handy.” The table began to smoulder.

“Be careful,” Ala`ash said between gasps. “That is a pain net. The strands burn as they hold.”

“Of course they do,” Katrina said with distaste, and pressed the third rune. It flashed, but nothing else happened. “I think this one is it,” she said and pressed the end against the binders. When she pressed the rune again, the binders clicked and she pulled them off his wrists. “Are you alright?”

“You killed him,” he said, wiping tears and snot from his face with the sleeve of his robe.

“I didn’t expect you to be alive. I couldn’t leave you to them.”

“You delayed me and I-they-I was not finished with my prayers when they came.” He shuddered as he looked over at the corpse. “That’s -- He was K’mortus. I grew up with him.”

He had not said the name unkindly. Katrina was uncertain whether to apologize. “Did you know the other?”

“F’la?” He asked, his voice hopeful.

Katrina shook her head. “I had no choice. He’s dead. You said they would have taken you to Ty--” She stopped abruptly at his panicked look. She drew the curtain across the front window, wondering how many  _ gnets _ until reinforcements arrived.

“It was their duty,” Ala`ash said, picking up a vial, and, having nowhere to put it, setting it back on the floor.  _ No amount of picking up is putting his life back together, _ Katrina thought.

“Gathering children for ritual sacrifice is not duty,” Katrina said, an angry edge creeping into her voice.

“If they refused, their own families would be sent as tributes instead.”

“So they decided it was better yours than theirs?” Katrina said as she wiped her hand against a tablecloth, leaving behind a blue-grey smear. 

Ala`ash shook his head. “They will probably be sacrificed anyway. It is the price for failure.”

“Of course it is. Do people actually  _ worship _ Tyr--”

He flashed his hands at her face. “Stop! You will draw his ire. He is only the Conqueror, and he shall bring glory and power to those who obey.“

“Sacrificing children. You cannot believe that’s glory.”

“No one sane believes it, but who is sane anymore? The obedient survive, and the cruel thrive. It is our fate that we shall all water Trykanos with our blood. Even a murderer such as I.”

Katrina wished she knew the right gentle words, the touch that soothed. Instead she had just tazed him. “Tyrannon made you their murderer. Ash, Can you drive the Proctors’ vehicle?”

“I-I suppose I could,” he asked, drifting listlessly through the wreckage. 

“I need your help. The god whose name you refuse to say about is going to destroy my home.”

“Then your home is doomed. I shall pray for a quick death for you and your kind. But please, I must find my urgents and prepare more draught.” He resumed picking through the crystals on the floor. “I think there’s enough left for two…”

Katrina snapped her hand out and yanked him back, flipping up her faceplate to glare directly into his eyes. “No. I came a long way to do more than that. I-I  _ do  _ more than that. You. Do. Not. Kill. Me. I destroyed Valhalla and watched Yggdrasil burn. I’ve dealt with Angels of Death and carried a weapon made by the brightest of lights through the blackest of hells. And if I have to burn this dimension to cinders save mine, then it. Will. Burn.” 

He yanked away, rubbing his shoulder. “You cannot stop this.” His voice shook in disbelief. “If anything, the gathering of tributes have increased. His hunger has never been sated.”

Katrina wondered if Witchcraft’s banishment caused Tyrannon to demand more sacrifices. “What is Tyrankos?”

“The center of the universe, where the Conquering Throne brings conquered worlds.”

“I need to get there. And I need to find a way home.”

Ala`ash looked at Katrina in dismay and shook his head. “You are mad. Doubly so if you came without a way to escape.”

“Maybe I am, but you’re not mad enough! How can you just stop after everything else you’ve done -- everything else you’ve  _ had _ to do. You killed your children to spare them his hunger. And now you’re just going to die? Don’t you want at least in some small way to put an end to this?”

“Do you not think others have tried? The paths to the Sacrificers are lined with the heads of those that were foolish enough to oppose him. The spectacles of their torment are broadcast throughout the realm.”

“You are dead either way. Your children are dead. Shouldn’t someone  _ pay for that _ ?”

Katrina watched Ala`ash survey the wreckage, and stare with dread longing to the hallway. For a moment, she thought they would just give himself up to the shadows and join their children in the bedroom. Instead he took unsteady steps toward the closet. “If we’re going, you’ll need a robe to hide your armor.”

It took far too long to figure out how to turn off the pulsing lights on the vehicle. The communication device, as Ala`ash pointed out, remained a mystery, and Katrina ripped it from its fixture and smashed it on the roadway in a shower of lavender sparks. She studied the components within, but nothing looked familiar. She pointed up to the silvery arc in the sky. “What is that?” 

“That’s the moon,” Ala`ash said from the driver’s seat, frowning at the control console.

“It doesn’t look like any moon I’ve seen.” Katrina tugged the robe back into place.

“What do moons on your world look like?”

“Moon. We only have one. It’s round.”

“A disk? Celestial bodies are disks in your dimension?” Ala’ash asked in wonder as his fingers traced a rune on the dashboard. The vehicle rumbled in response. He took the wheel in his hands, then folded them back in his lap. 

“What?” Katrina asked as she slid into the passenger side. 

“I-I don’t know where to go.”

“Don’t you have friends? Family?” Katrina said as she struggled to arrange the robe made for a body of obviously different proportions. She heard a tearing sound, and cursed. She was unsure what the translation crystal had done with that, but she could have sworn Ala`ash blushed.

“There are others -- they revere Kanesh as well, but I do not know them well. They might help, but they might turn us in. And the streets have sentinels -- constructs that let the Proctors watch from afar.”

“Avoid the ones you can, and for the ones you can’t,” Katrina said, hefting the Proctor’s truncheon. “Find somewhere secluded to hide and maybe somewhere we can get another vehicle.”

“We will not have the starting charm for another vehicle,” Ala`ash said, and patiently continued at Katrina’s blank stare. “Without a starting charm, a vehicle will not go. Can you artifice a starting charm?” 

Katrina shook her head, wishing she’d taken that urban warfare training rather than joining the Office of Superhuman relations. “Let's find your friends. Maybe they’ll know what to do with this vehicle.”

Ala`ash started the vehicle and after a few jolts was quietly driving down the street. 

After a moment, Katrina said, “They’re spheres.”

Ala’ash drove slowly. “What?”

“Our moon -- it’s a sphere, just like our planet. We orbit a star in a great circle.”

“How strange,” Ala`ash said, as he pulled on the wheel to glide into a turn. “Only a few of our stars are spheres.”

“A few? What are the others?” Katrina asked, looking up into the sky.

“Well, rings, of course. Our moon is a ring that encircles our planet as sure as our planet encircles the sun.”

“Your planet is a ring that loops around a star? Does that mean the inside of the planet is lit all the time?”

“Of course, but the planet rotates so we have times of daylight and times of night.”

“So at night, we’re on the outside of the ring, and in the day we’ll be on the inside?” Katrina asked, incredulous.

“Exactly.”

Katrina watched the buildings pass as her mind grasped at an idea of a torus rotation from inside to outside. “How does that  _ even work _ ?”

“It has always worked,” Ala`ash said as he drove the vehicle along the darkened street. “It is the Conqueror’s will.”


	12. Bullets and Fragments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Returning from the V'hanian Dimension, Juliette tries to pick up where Katrina Mirinova left off.

With the viewports open, the glow along the event horizon of the wormhole bathes the suite in scintillating rivulets of green and gold. Juliette feels the serene contemplation of Jaboran pilgrims in another suite, sifting the colors of the wormhole for meaning and comfort. In earlier times, differences in interpretation had brought warfare and strife amongst them, but now, the contrariety was part of the miracle. 

Somehow, the Jaborans had managed to survive that hurdle and not destroy themselves, Juliette muses as she watches the colors shift along the coverlet and Sepan’s back, careful not to wake him with her thoughts. How many civilizations had risen up, eager with wonder, only to crash on that theocratic shore and receded into dull dogma, or shattered on the rocks, making space for another species to have their chance?

Juliette senses Ariana’s Presence as a quiet, contemplative shadow at the window ledge. After a few breaths, Juliette stills her thoughts and listens to the devoted prayers of Jaboran pilgrims three decks below their own. From there, she senses echoes of their devotion rising up from the planet below. She disappears into the rhythm of their ador, drifting quieter still, approaching the point her tutors on Ulca called “the moment when nothing is contemplated and all is heard”. By eliminating herself, can she feel a presence drift from the wormhole into the stars, and for an instant, she sees the universe as the presence does -- a web of shifting energies, a song among the stars. Her stars.

Juliette amplifies the presence of the wormhole and presses it to Ariana’s contemplation. Her thoughts unravel as she beholds the marvel. Even amplified, the wormhole’s presence was difficult to sense, but Ariana and Sephan could be quiet -- she liked that in them -- the noise of their celebration and the depth of their quiet that let them savor the reverberations long after the wormhole’s refrain had ended.

“Do you hear that all the time?” Ariana asks, amazed, through her presence. Other species called it telepathy. The Zaed called it being.

“Only when it decided to let me,” Juliette answers in kind to let Sephan sleep, enjoying the rise and fall of his slumber.

“You sound like a Jaboran mystic.”

Juliette let Ariana see the disarray of the room as she saw it. “I’m not sure the mystics would approve of our use--”

“--shameless use--”

“-- of their sacred observation suites, and during their Festival of Light. How did you arrange this miracle?”

Ariana gives an enigmatic smile. “The Seventh House of Zaed makes its own fortunes, and we promised the Jaboran High Priest that the suites will be appropriately re-sanctified.”

“Well, I, Scion of the Four hundred, fifty third House am grateful and honored.” Between the Zaed already on the station and the addition of any who could take leave from the ship, there had been almost a hundred Zaed to form a communal Presence, and festoon the ancient hallways of the Jaboran Cathedral with bright colored cloths and emerald plants and flowers from planetside. Multiple suites had been turned into parties that ranged from the demur to the scandalous, each with their own intrigues and liaisons. Juliette had taken it all in as a Zaed starved to be among her own, floating through the mad, wonderful chaos, savoring floral tea and memories. “Still--”

“Still? Is that suspicion I sense from you?” Ariana asks.

“Perhaps,” Juliette says as a confession and a tease. “There were more Zaed than I remember normally being on the station, and this close to the wormhole, scanners -- the d-flux --”

“It is difficult to determine where the V’han might be watching, but we hope the d-flux is enough to throw off their scanners. And some things even Alliance Fleet should not know.”

Juliette sighs and stretches languid. “It’s never just a party --”

“Not when you’re a guest of the Empress. You’re one of a handful that have been to her dimension--”

“One of her dimensions of a half billion or so.”

“Not a billion?” Ariana asks, her amusement bubbling over. “I wonder why she rounds up? Still, I’m sure when the news reaches Zaed that you are still alive, your house’s rank will shoot up at least a hundred seats.” Ariana clocludes her thoughts with a nod to the viewport. “It all looks so peaceful--”

“Tell that to the sensor technicians. That V’hanian Cruiser is constantly scanning. We’re just beginning to decipher some of their energy signatures -- but others, and their weapon systems--”

“Yes, the mighty warfleet of the V’hanian Empire, still delicate enough that their cruisers need their own gate, and would bypass the wormhole.”

“Their own gate?” Juliette doesn’t bother to hide her chagrin. “Never.”

“They have proposed building a prototype gate, to bring more researchers across. More trade--” Ariana’s thoughts were slick with cynicism.

“More warships you mean,” Juliette says, “The Alliance Diplomatic Corps would never agree to it. That’s how it starts. With their own gates, the V’han can send in all the ships and soldiers it wants. That’s how it started in Reflection, and now the V’han are at our doorstep.”

“At least they stayed true to their nature, and Reflection betrayed the V’han. It's all out war now, We keep trying to see what is happening through the wormhole, but nothing. The V’han on this side of the wormhole tell us nothing -- most truly don’t know.”

Juliette had heard, but never visited, the twisted view of their own dimension. Many who had crossed had found their doppleganger -- people who held their likeness, but their hearts, their minds -- were changed, and rarely for the better. The discovery had brought each other a surge of dimensional science, and moments of all out war between them.

Juliette shared her memories of ruined Rukosa, fearing Terra in Reflection would suffer the same fate.

“That will be our fate, if we are not careful. There is something else you should know, Juliette. When the Empress visited last month, we felt something ‘off’ about her Presence --”

“Off?” Juliette asks.

“It took time to analyze, but the Houses agree that the Presence was synthetic.”

“Synthetic, how is that even possible?” The thoughts were free from her mind even as she found the answer. In millions of dimensions, anything was possible. “Do you think she suspected that the Houses were--”

“Accentuating her better nature? If she does, then her synthetic double -- android, hologram, something we haven’t even imagined -- was no accident, and she will act soon.” Ariana leave the window to sit at the edge of the bed and grips Juliette’s arm hard enough for the nails to bite into her skin. “My house, my mother and aunts-- we voted against you -- all those years ago. I do not know -- perhaps this is your fate, but if it is, please do something soon.”

“I am -- I will, but the Terrans of this world -- they are different from the Terrans we are used to. More like Reflection. 

“Different? Different genetically? Different in temperament?”

“Maybe both. The energies of their world make it hard to identify as many common genetic markers -- that might be a trait unto itself. They look like Terrans and for the most part, act like Terrans, but I cannot tell if the differences I see mean they’re the right ones to help us in this fight. But I plan to find out.”

***

As much as she wanted to see what Engineering had done to her moon cavern, Ariana’s urging forced her to attend to things on Earth-1842 directly, and there was little time for goodbyes.

Engineer Searle had suggested transporting her inside the building, but Juliette had pulled rank and selected the street outside. A show of force, no matter if the force was trespassing was not a way to win allies. Besides, she had no desire to be caught in a conflict between Alliance science and the sorcery of the Arch-mage.

The air hangs like a humid shroud as she completes her transport. The passersby move on with barely a glance -- used to oddly-dressed visitors simply appearing in thin air. Somewhere, a saxophone suffocates under the mid-afternoon sun. Juliette swims through the scent of coffee and hot pastries mixed with Begonia and Honysuckle to the weathered door with its black iron knocker, formed as a fanged beast. 

“Get lost!” A voice snaps from behind the door as the peephole goes from black to a hazy yellow.

“I have business with Caliburn.”

“Well, goodie for you. Let me see the appointment book -- oh here you are!”

“But I didn’t--”

“No, no you’re not! You don’t have an appointment, and if you’re beggin for beads you’re gonna have to show me your t--”

Juliette flashed a pack at the peephole. The replicator had initially refused to generate it, but finally relented after two senior officer approvals and a medical waiver. 

“Hey, are those--”

Juliette flips the pack and reads slowly. “Swisher Sweets. Cigarillo. Can you tell me if it goes well with Maker’s Mark, because I have whole bottle -- but I didn’t mean to bother you and I’ll just be on my --”

“Wait!”

Juliette bats her eyes at the peephole, but feels none of the usual discomfort that comes Terrans as they look at someone without pupils. Instead, its presence crackles with a kind of hot static that makes her re-consider her mental shields.

The latch clicks solidly and the latch twitches with a grunt from the other side. There are more grunts on the other side, followed by a strained growel and the frantic flapping of wings. The doorway inches open. “Hey blondie, a little help here!”

Juliette graciously nudges the door open, cooled by the breeze of the small dragon’s wings as flits from behind the door. Cute, she decided, if you ignored the rows of pointed teeth, ragged horns and how it reeks of fireworks and gunfire.

“You must be Nicotine,” Juliette says with her best smile as the small dragon gnaws on the corner of the pack as he perches on the entry table a testament to Lieutenant Mirinova’s intel. Cheap cigars. Whiskey. “Could you tell the Arch-mage I’m looking for Lieutenant Mirinova? Last I heard, she had his pistol.”

“She still does, and boy is he pissed. That’s his favorite.” Nicotine claws open the package of cigarillos. “Get the bottle for me, wouldya?”

“I really need to talk to Caliburn.”

“You got him, so to speak,” The Arch Mage says, lanky in t-shirt and jeans -- what was the term the Lieutenant had used?  _ Burned Out _ . Almost skeletal. Ash drops from the cigarette in his mouth as he talks. He didn’t emote his feelings like most people, but kept them bottled in behind sunken eyes and a five o’clock shadow. “You didn’t set off the wards, which means you don’t mean me any ill-will. You don’t seem magical, but you got some kinda power about you, and you know Kat Mirinova, which means you are most certainly a pain in someone’s ass.”

“I’m registered with UNTIL under the name Emerald Sentinel as an alien life form.”

“So, ET, are you here officially, because I already told them that Kat’s gone.”

Juliette pries the top off the whiskey. “You made her a bullet. One especially for a man named Viktor Zatopek.”

“Ninja type, running around with some kinda tulwar hacking up UNTIL agents?”

“That’s him.”

“I did make such a bullet. Mirinova has it, wherever she is. Though if I had to guess, she’s angling her way to Thulkos.” Caliburn sighs as he pours two glasses from the bottle. “Such a shame and a waste. I’ll miss that pistol.”

Juliette refuses the offered glass. “Lieutenant Mirinova said you made two.”

Caliburn pauses in mid-sip. “Kat’s not always right.” He inhales. The tip of the cigarette kindles.

“She said that if you made a bullet for someone, you’d make another for yourself, just in case the target managed to survive.”

“There she goes, dragging me into her paranoid delusions.”

“An arch-mage has many enemies, I’m told.”

With a chuckle and a shake of his head, he drinks his glass empty. “Justified paranoia. Well you know, making a spare’s not a bad idea, but what’s it to you? Are you picking up her old scores? I’m not sure that’s a burden you want to carry. Kat’s got a whole universe of issues.” 

“Lieutenant Mirinova wants Zapotek stopped so UNTIL can work more freely in Europe.”

“Wanted. So you’re going to kill him to get into Kat’s good graces?”

Juliette doesn’t even consider lying. She had read Caliburn’s file with UNTIL. If even half what UNTIL claimed was true, and not just some unexplained energy source -- lying to the Arch Mage wasn’t wise at all. “Lieutenant Mirinova gave me a blood sample and his medical records. I might have found another solution, and yes, I want to be in her good graces.”

“Worried she might figure out you’re working for V’han? I don’t think she’s in much of a positon to do anything about it.”

“I’m worried she’ll take off with my favorite weapon and go somewhere I cannot retrieve it,” Juliette says and fills Caliburn’s stony silence with a fractional smile. “My situation with the V’han is complicated. You have reason to hate them, but they hate Tyrannon as much as you do.”

“They.” Caliburn says with a slow exhale. “Don’t you mean ‘We’?”

“We are independent, for the moment. V’han wants from us what she wants from this dimension -- obedience and loyalty.” Juliette’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “Prosperity for all.”

“So you hand over our dimension so she’ll leave yours alone?”

“It doesn’t work that way. To the V’han there are subjects of the Empire and those who will become subjects of the Empire.” 

“That’s a dangerous game, threading the needle with great powers like that.”

“We do what we can.  _ We  _ didn’t get super powers,” 

Caliburn sighs with a shake of his head. “Touche. So if you can fix Zapotek with your -- whatever you do, what do you need a bullet for?” 

“I’m not entirely sure he can be fixed. Maybe I just want to use it to see what kind of people you really are.”

His answer is silence as he regards her. Juliette feels a prickle at the back of her neck -- a cold sliver of awareness that slides down her spine. She wills herself not to react and to keep her expression a porcelain mask. He pours another drink, filling the glass halfway with the amber liquid. The scent of the alcohol burns at the back of her throat.

“Everythings got a price in Vibora Bay, hon,” Caliburn says, sliding into an easy drawl. “You want Zapotek’s bullet, you’re gonna have to give me some of your blood. Just a drop or two, you’ll barely miss it.” He winks with a grin.

Juliette offers her hand, only to withdraw it as Caliburn produces a golden needle. “I don’t suppose it would disrupt your ritual to sterilize that thing, would it?”

Caliburn gives a gracious nod, pouring the whiskey along the needle. For a moment, the needle flames, then gutters out. Juliette nods with satisfaction, returning her hand.

“So,” Juliette asks as her blood plays a scarlet pattern on a white kerchief. “Do you have a bullet made from Lieutenant Mirinova’s blood?”

“A bullet with Kats blood?” Caliburn says, “Oh no, darlin. I don’t have one. I’ve got a whole magazine of ‘em.”

“You hardly need them, if she is dead as you imply.”

“True, but I don’t think the universe likes me that much.”

***

Juliette’s brief interactions with UNTIL Lieutenant Andres had left her with an impression of a wary, cautious man, whose silence held back a torrent of anxious thoughts. But Lieutenant Mirinova had liked him and said that he had been more light-hearted before the encounter with Zaptek, and that all he needed was time.

Time, Juliette thought ruefully, was something no one had. She immediately shook off the dark thoughts, careful not to spread them to anyone else -- there were already so many huddled within their self-imposed webs of worry and suspicion. They did not trust her, did not trust that ship that had just appeared and then disappeared, and they definitely did not trust her reluctance to explain her whereabouts over the past few days.

She was surprised Lieutenant Andres was willing to see her at all. But there he was, a tall, narrow-faced man, thinning yellow hair and watery grey eyes. Perched at the edge of his chair, sharp and tall, the scar along his neck scarcely a shadow. He stares at his computer screen to avoid her eyes, his keyboard chattering as he types.

“As I have said before, Emerald Sentinel, your OSR liaison is Lieutenant Maroni, any and all requests would be best handled by--”

Juliette places the bullet on the edge of his desk facing upward, the runes on the casing catching the light from the desk lamp. “Do you know what this is?”

The typing dwindles into silence. Lieutenant Andres stares at the bullet as if trying to read the runes. “I know  _ what _ it is, but the real question is  _ who _ that bullet is for.”

“Lieutenant Andres, Lieutenant Mirinova had this bullet made to complete a mission. The scar on your neck -- you got that from Scimitar, did you not?”

“I’m quite sure you can read the incident report--”

“I have,” Juliette said with a gentle tone. “It is a very -- clinical report. You nearly died after Scimitar cut your throat. Had Lieutenant Mirinova not checked in--”

“A lucky thing, that,” Lieutenant Andres says. Hiis terror and rage assaults Juliette’s senses. “Pity he escaped.”

“Yes, Pity,” Juliette pauses to let his memories make her argument for her. “Lieutenant, I would like your help capturing him. Lieutenant Mirinova sent me Dr. Strasky’s records on Viktor Zapotek -- the energy bombardment, the chemical cocktails, hundreds of invasive tests. On my ship -- we have very advanced medical facilities, and we ran Dr. Strasky’s barbaric experiments in simulation. 

“Barbaric? Well see here, Emerald Sentinel, Viktor Zapotek  _ volunteered _ for the program and he could have stopped at any time--”

Juliette paused to let his words sink in. “Could he? There’s very clearly a point where Dr. Stasky lost control of the experiment--”

“Yes, when Scimitar escaped--”

“No. Before that. Much before that.”

“What do you mean?” Andres asks, his focus shifting from the bullet to her. 

“Strasky lost control of the process, and wasn’t even following his own notes. He was experimenting to stabilize Zapotek but was following hunches and his own curiosity more than any protocols. And if you read any of Strasky’s real notes, you know that he was leaving out a lot about Zapotek’s treatments in the reports he sent UNTIL.”

“I haven’t read them, but I have heard--”

Zapotek’s only contact was with Strasky, who was in the  _ perfect _ position to talk down any concerns or reservations Zapotek had, until the process started to generate piercing migraines and intense paranoia. Zapotek is a victim, who--”

Lieutenant Andres slams his hand down on the desk hard enough to make the keyboard jump, then pauses, shocked by his outburst. When he speaks again, his words are slow and deliberate. “The only victims are the fourteen UNTIL agents he murdered in cold blood, and the fifty odd that he’s put into the hospital over the years.” He collapses back into his chair, rubbing his temples. “Emerald Sentinel, please go.”

Juliette nods. “I admit I do not know your Terran ways, even though I have spent two years studying your species. I-I’m sorry Lieutenant, for dragging you through this. UNTIL failed to follow good medical procedure with Zapotek, and Scimitar was the result. I thought you would want to help Lieutenant Mirinova complete her mission of removing Scimitar as a threat.”

“There’s a team dealing with him. They’re capable,” he says, but Juliette could feel the doubt in his words. “Besides,” he adds nodding to the bullet, “It’s nothing without Caliburn’s pistol.”

“Caliburn says otherwise.”

“Oh?” Lieutenant Andres asks, regarding the bullet with renewed fascination.

“Lieutenant, my culture takes its obligations very seriously, and I am indebted to Lieutenant Mirinova for her assistance with the whole mess with PRIMUS. I think your culture has a similar sense of obligation -- and we share a common desire for justice, even if we disagree on the dispensation.” Juliette plies her most gracious smile. “That being said, this is your world, and I will abide by your decisions. I would like to help, in some small way, and let you leverage all the tools at your disposal.”

The bullet is in Lieutenant Andres’ hand, his gaze sliding across the runes.. “I haven’t fired a powder weapon in years. But I think Corporal Lemment has a Colt Government Issue in his collection. Major Clay will never---”

“Scimitar is dangerous, and we need to use every weapon at our disposal,” Juliette says with a nod. The words would resonate with Major Clay, who may have his doubts but was long tired of losing agents to Scimitar, and Maroni -- was eager to prove herself. 

“Brno.” Lieutenant Andres murmurs, reluctantly setting the bullet on the desk. 

“Pardon?”

“Scimitar is in Brno, in the Czech Republic. A thousand year old city in Earstern Europe. Beautiful if you’re a tourist, and its where Viktor grew up. He’ll know those twisted, ancient streets like the back of his hand. A veritable ‘hometown advantage’”

“So you *have* been keeping tabs on him.” Juliette says, smiling despite the growing dread she feels from Lieutenant Andres.  _ The memories of that night cling to him -- a cut across his neck clean he barely felt it, then the gouts of blood that wouldn’t stop and sliding into the dark. Leaving his family behind.  _ Juliette helps him push the memories away.

“Sentinel, why me? Aren’t there others?” 

“There are, but I know you won’t hesitate if things go wrong.”

***

With the speed at which Lieutenant Andres secured a flight to The Czech Republic, despite chaos of redeployments to prepare for Tyrannon, Juliette found herself wishing she had a Lieutenant Andres in her Science department. 

There had been barely enough time for her to have her suit jacket and glasses beamed down from the moon. She could have used the same technology to transport herself, but it was important there be no unexplained gaps for Scimitar, with his UNTIL experience, to be suspicious about.

On the flight to Brno, Lieutenant Andres briefly showed her the pistol he had borrowed, before holstering it under his jacket. It was late afternoon after they landed -- their cover was honesty-- after all, multiple UNTIL teams had followed rumors of Scimitar’s whereabouts to Brno. Besides, Scimitar would recognize Maroni and Andres, even if the private with them would be far too new in the ranks to be in Scimitar’s personnel files. 

In the early evening, they rattle the predictable cages -- his brothers and friends in Brno -- all giving the usual answers which Juliette felt to be true and she realizes that Stasky’s treatments have all but locked Viktor Zapotek away, leaving nothing but Scimitar.

It made sense to separate. Small groups were a more enticing target. Around nine PM, sitting at a crowded cafe, practicing a few words of Czech, she felt the frantic stab of Maroni’s presence.

_ He’s here -- he’s--  _

Maroni’s attention is suddenly elsewhere. 

As planned, Andres and Maroni were at a cafe just three blocks away. Juliette parts the crowd at the bar not by force, but by instilling a sense they need to make room -- for what, they are not sure. Juliette wove her way through the space made, and ran down the street, trying to pinpoint Maroni or Andres, but she can only catch glimpses as their thoughts turn chaotic, focused on survival, obviously trying to avoid that blade of his that could cut through almost anything. 

Almost.

She enters the doorway to be greeted by a moment of attention and just a glimpse of his black bodysuit before a blast turns her vision into white clouds and sends a hot ringing through her ears.  _ Flash bangs _ the Terrans called them, her eyes clouded with bright after images. But her own presence is undeterred, and finds Scimitar’s mind among the crowd. She had read about his migraines, and felt about for their source in his mind as she surrounded herself with shields, pushing outward just a little to not knock over the other customers trying to get away. She heard a blaster fire, as Maroni fired wild -- not exactly wild -- her own presence seeking out her target.

She felt Scimitar’s blows against her shield, hammering hard, punctuated by his surprise that her shields block his sword. Still. He hits hard enough to press her against the doorframe, slashing over and over with the blade. She extends her presence around the blade, twisting, but he’s strong, and he keeps his grip, even as she drags him halfway across the cafe. He yanks his sword free with both hands, slicing at her but unable to get close enough to hit her. As her vision clears, Juliette sees Maroni in a corner, one hand holding the wound at her belly closed, the other holding her blaster, her aim improving as she gets a better sense of her target.

A push through the twists of his mindscape brings her to thick, oily coils clenched around a pale, fleshy lump. A conceptual representation of his migraines, but solid enough to twist, forcing the bands to constrict harder until the trapped flesh turned pale in the middle and crimson at the ends. She hears Scimitar’s groan, and feels the migraine plunge through their connection, with waves of hot, painful nausea. Her muscles tremble under the strain, and she can feel Scimitar pushing himself forward with pure will, pushing through the press of the migraine. 

Juliette scrambles to re-establish the shields that have melted away. As he closes, she senses a grim determination in Andres, who has been forgotten by Scimitar in preference for the far more dangerous target. Does he chide himself for not suspecting the new private as the hidden weapon of the ambush. Between waves of agony, she cannot tell as Andress pulls a pistol and fires. She hears a quick blaster shot, and feels the vertigo from the UNTIL stunner, relieved that with the blaster shot, the agony of the migraine ended, leaving her weak and shaking.

“Are you alright?” Andres asks, a sheet of blood flowing from the slash at his forehead. 

Juliette gulps air as she examines Maroni. A deep slice, to be sure, with other wounds along her arms. “He was fast -- really fast. I could barely stay ahead of him.”

“Even blinded with a flash grenade?” Juliette says, as blood soaks the gauze she’s pressed against Maroni’s belly. “That’s pretty amazing.”

“You were like a green star,” Maroni said. Blood pools from the gauze as she sits on the floor. “Did Andres shoot him? _ ” _

“Andres used his blaster,” Juliette says has Maroni hold the gauze at her belly as she binds Scimitar’s wrists. She pulls his mask off. Even unconscious, Viktor’s face is etched with the twists of his mind. He barely stirs as she injects him with the hypospray, and hands Andres a gauze for his forehead.

“What was that?”

“Nanites mostly. They’ll fix what they can and let the rest heal naturally. I though you would have shot him with that pistol you borrowed.” She applies a bandage to Andres’ forehead. “Why didn’t you?” 

“I almost did, when it looked like you were in trouble, but Maroni winged him with a stun, and I figured I could shoot him hard enough to get him to stay down. “I read the reports on the flight over. We should have checked up on him. We created him, and if your treatment doesn’t work -- but why do you care? You don’t even know him.”

“No, but I know you,” Juliette says. There might, she thinks, be hope for them, and for us. Now she just needed time.

***

“I do not understand,” Proteep The Younger says. Perhaps it is the woman’s story that makes him anxious, though he suspects it may be from the three cups of dark brown liquid he has had at the cafe. Still, the cups had been small, hot and bitter. “Why did you not ritually kill the man with the sword?”

Juliette cradles her tea in her hands. “He is sick. I cannot make him well if he is dead.” They are both in their human costumes, but Proteep sits oddly, as he has bent at a location other than his hips. His feet bounce on the floor.

“But you got the magic pellet that would have killed him. Why did you get the pellet if you were not going to use it?”

Proteeps antics cause others to look over. Juliette soothes their concerns with a brush of presence. “Because I needed to see if the UNTIL Agent would kill him.”

“He should have.”

“Even if there was a chance he would get better. Does -- does your species have the concept of mercy?”

“Mercy,” Proteep says, as if tasting the word like a leaf. “You mean when you have every reason to kill someone and you do not?” He checks his phone for the tenth time in the hour The Observers were in position, the Adjudicators ready to close in. All he had to do was give the word and they would attack. Still, Proteep is worried about that thing she called Presence, and wonders if she already knows. He swipes the screen closed. “We are merciful when we do not kill our prisoners but take them as slaves, instead.” He cringes, knowing from the looks around him his voice has carried again.

She leans in close though to lean over the center of the table. “Most humans find slavery abhorant.”

“And what does your kind think? The Zaed. Would they rather kill their enemies than show -- what is the word -- mercy?”

Juliette shrugs. “Long ago, we had slaves -- those we defeated and controlled with our presence. But we have also long valued honesty and compassion. You cannot be honest and compassionate and have slaves. As we learned more of the minds of those we enslaved, we realized slavery was wrong.”

“You stopped.”

“It took time. Our Galactic Alliance was not built in a day. You keep looking at your communicator. Am I keeping you?”

“No, I mean yes -- we have not discussed anything on our agenda. You are a terrible diplomat!”

Juliette smiles, and sips her tea. “I am not a diplomat. I am a neutral party, serving as your advocate to this planet and this planet’s advocate to the Gadroon.”

“What have you advocated for us?” Proteep pointed to her as he asked. Humans pointed when they were making a point, which is why humans called it a point.

“What do you want?”

“We want this planet!”

Juliette smiles and resists the urge to rub her temples. “They are not going to give you this planet--”

“Then we shall take --”

“But, they could be amenable to letting you stay on the mountain in Canada, and leave your terraforming in place until a new planet could be found.” She dives into the silence of his pause. “Yes, possibly, and instead of defending it you could bring down families and let them stay there -- rotate them, or just let your elite stay there. Whatever suits you, but no expansion and no hostile ovatures to the Steelhead forces there.”

“Two mountains!” Proteep said.

“You are in no position to demand and I am in no position to grant. You will also have to contribute to the reversal of the terraforming when you go. That, I can make palatable to the Terrans here. They have moments, but are mostly kind, and generous. They will allow it as a goodwill gesture to a people who lost their homeworld.”

Proteeps counteroffer is cut off by the warble of his communicator. He glances at the screen, determined to turn it off when he sees that the message is from Commander Saaloxt. He had sent Proteep’s pictures of this Juliette to Home Fleet and Home Fleet had responded. Proteep’s mouth and skin go dry. He resists the urge to lick his skin moist again.

“Are you alright?” Juliette asks, did you have too much espresso? She knows he is not, but dare not probe further.

“You- you serve the Empress.” The messages she had shown him filled his stomachs with dread. Complaints of the Empress and how she was not following Gadroon ways.

Juliette cants her head as she gropes for an answer. “In much a similar capacity as I do Terra--”

“Her major domo very much wishes to meet with you. Immediately.”


End file.
